Chuck Versus Fate
by rab147
Summary: Chuck gets abducted by the Ring before he can save his father from Roark and Fulcrum. Presumed dead, how will he survive with no one coming to rescue him? Begins during 2.21 "Chuck Versus The Colonel". Eventual Chuck/Sarah. Darkish.
1. Where It All Changed

My first Chuck fic!

I've been watching Chuck since it first began airing, but it was only recently that I got my hands on the DVD's of seasons 1-3, and so its been my latest obsession re-watching all of the episodes. Doing so has given me a bunch of ideas for fics and I decided to run with this one. We'll see how that goes!

The fic picks off during the Season 2 episode "Chuck Versus the Colonel" and so you may or may not want to re-watch that episode to refresh your memory. The fic deviates from canon at the point where Chuck and Sarah are AWOL in order to save Chuck's dad and Casey finally catches up with them at the motel, after Sarah has disobeyed her order to bring Chuck into CIA custody. I've inserted in italics the scene directly from the actual episode where my fic veers off too.

There will be romance. So you know. There also won't be any slash. The only other thing I'll say is that all of your favorite characters (Sarah, Casey, Morgan, Ellie, Devon, Carina, Jill, Alex, etc.) from Chuck will have their roles to play in this story.

I'm planning to keep it fairly fast-paced, but things could change I suppose. I think that's about it for the intro.

For the disclaimer, I'm just going to place it here at the beginning, one time for the whole fic. Then I don't have to remember to put it on every chapter, thereby making it one less thing I might forget to do. If it makes you feel any better, just imagine the following disclaimer pasted at the top of every chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck or anything related, and no money is being made. This fic is purely for my enjoyment and nothing else. I thanks ya for giving it a read!

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Chapter 1: Where It All Changed

A dark-haired man stood in front of a large glass window, overlooking much of the city below. From this high up, the middle-aged man could see practically everything – the many pea-sized cars driving around the roads, the many specks that were people bustling around, the many buildings positioned in the way they always were, never changing. The city was going about its business as it usually did…there was just something majestic about it, he thought reverently.

The man, his eyes gleaming intelligently, stood with impeccable posture, his arms folded loosely behind his back. The expensive navy blue suit he wore was just one of dozens he used frequently, hinting at how wealthy he was. The way in which he held himself upright with such confidence displayed just how powerful a man he truly was.

The sun was just setting, casting a red-orange hue full of mystery over the city. The orange light particles shined across the short-haired man's face through the window, giving him an all the more diabolical look.

The world was scattered with peculiar things such as this sunset, he noted inwardly. They occurred everywhere and every day - you only had to be open and conscious to them in order to witness their beauty as he did on a regular basis.

A knock interrupted the man's inner musings, pulling him back to the room he was currently standing in, high up in this towering skyscraper. His office.

The door opened softly. "I have something you will want to see, sir," Jenny said importantly. His attractive personal assistant.

Well, she was so much more than that, but that's what he preferred to call her. She was trained extensively to assist him with anything he needed, and more times than not he found himself quite thankful of her expert, and deadly, help.

It was just then that he realized the tall Asian woman was holding something, a small metal box and a crumpled piece of paper.

He shot her a curious glance as he returned to his desk in the middle of the spacious room, "And what would that be?"

Taking this as her cue, Jenny strode forward and set the box onto his desk, making a small clang as it contacted. "This," she intoned as she proceeded to open the box, "is something we have been wanting for a long time."

Inside the box, the man saw a small computer memory chip, set against leather to keep it in place. Sliding it closer to him, he inquired, "What's on it?"

Jenny met his eyes as she told him, "Allegedly, the identity of the Intersect. The real one – not CIA agent Larkin."

This caused the man to raise his eyebrows, "I…see. And is it reliable? How did we acquire it?"

Jenny sat on the edge of his desk, which he balefully ignored. "I believe it is reliable, unless you don't think Fulcrum is reliable." She continued after a short pause to see if he wanted to interject anything, "It was sent by a Fulcrum operative that was part of the Meadow Branch suburb project."

"Who?" he asked, stopping her from going on any further.

Jenny squinted at the paper she was holding in her hands, "A…Brad White. It says here he made a copy of the original chip, so that he could alert both his Fulcrum handlers and you directly. I don't know how he knows about us tho-"

The man held up his hand to stop her. "Ah, I understand now. I have several agents in each of our lower subsidiaries who are instructed to send me and the Elders any important information. White was one of them in Fulcrum." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "However…he has been confirmed dead for quite some time. Why are we just receiving this now, I wonder?"

Soaking that in, Jenny had an answer for him. "Well, sir, it was just found today from one of our mail drops, which hadn't been checked since, I suspect, around the time White was killed."

The man raised an eyebrow, "That would explain it. Make sure something like this never happens again, will you?"

Jenny gave a nod, "Of course, sir."

"Very good." He appeared to consider the chip for a short moment, "Because I know for certain that Fulcrum is still not aware of the Intersect's true identity, I'm going to assume that the CIA recovered the original chip after dealing with White, meaning that after seeing what's on this chip, we'll be the only people that know who the real Intersect is. Disregarding the CIA and NSA, of course. Let's make sure we keep it that way, eh?"

Looking sharply at his nodding assistant in a way that promised torture should she do otherwise, the man smiled, "Alright, let's see it." He took the chip out of the box and stuck it in the correct port on his desk computer.

"Thank you, Mr. White," he muttered as the chips contents immediately popped up on the computer monitor after he entered his intel password.

The man and his assistant stared intently at the screen. On the screen was simply a picture and a name. The picture was of a young man with black hair, maybe in his twenties. Below the mug shot was the name, "Charles Carmichael."

The man tapped his desk with his fingers, "Interesting." He turned to Jenny slowly, "Jenny, please get me everything we have on this Charles Carmichael. And organize a team to capture him in a way that dissuades any attempts at rescue…I believe you know what I mean."

Jenny hopped up off the desk, already in motion. "Yes, sir, it will be done."

"Thank you."

As she exited, the man glanced back at the innocent-looking man in the picture on the screen. Smirking, the Ring Director took in the features of the man in the picture and committed them to memory.

"I shall be seeing you very soon, I think, Mr. Carmichael."

OOOOO

_"Drop it," Colonel John Casey's gruff voice commanded as he pointed his pistol at a similarly armed CIA agent Sarah Walker. Several downed Fulcrum agents were scattered haphazardly on the ground around them, evidence of the scuffle that occurred outside the small motel not minutes ago._

_The two spies stared each other down for a moment. "Can't do that, John," Sarah retorted evenly, not backing down._

_Watching this from the driver's seat of the car, Chuck Bartowski suddenly felt like he needed to intervene in some way. Panicking slightly, Chuck opened the car door and stepped halfway out, "Guys. Guys, guys, guys. Let's just take a beat here. Remember, we are a team."_

_"Stay in the car!" both Sarah and Casey snapped back, still focusing all their attention on each other._

_"Technically, I still have one foot in the car!" he shouted back impatiently, gesturing toward his foot with his hands. His reply didn't faze either of the other two, as by this time they were quite used to these frequent funny guy comments from the Buy More employee._

_There was a pause. No one moved – they were at a standstill._

_Casey finally spoke up with a question, "How far do you think you're gonna get?"_

_Slightly uncertain, Sarah answered, "Until we rescue Chuck's dad." She didn't elaborate on that, feeling that it was unnecessary._

_Out of nowhere, one of the 'beaten' Fulcrum agents on the ground jumped back up to his feet only a few paces away, showing he wasn't out of the fight yet. Noticing this right as it was happening, Sarah and Casey wasted no time in re-aiming their respective guns at the enemy. Each fired a single shot at the man, downing him again, most likely permanently this time._

_Their guns were pointed back at each other as soon as they were sure the Fulcrum grunt was taken care of._

_Sarah looked down at her pistol in dismay, realizing with dread that she was now out of ammo. Casey also smugly took note of this, "Uh-oh, Walker. You're out of ammo."_

_From his position behind the open car door, Chuck observed Sarah process this and give in after only a moment of deliberation. She lowered her weapon slowly, clearly unhappy about the situation. Keeping his firearm cocked, ready, and trained on Walker, the NSA agent confidently added, "It's over."_

_Sarah gave Casey a troubled look as she accepted the fact that she was bested. Seeing her concession, Casey gestured down with his gun, "On the ground." The standoff ended as Sarah dropped her empty gun to the ground, not taking her betrayed eyes away from Casey the entire time._

Chuck, because of where he was standing, saw it mere seconds before the other two did. Even so, he still didn't have enough time to warn them beyond a frantic, "Guys!" before they themselves had become aware of it too. As Sarah halted in the middle of complying with Casey's last demand, the Fulcrum team practically swooped in to surround all three of them, blocking any notion of trying to escape.

There were perhaps a dozen of them, Chuck surmised, as he scanned the area. They were tactically spread out and heavily equipped with black armor, black helmets, and a myriad of weapons, leaving no chance that Sarah and Casey would be able take them out.

He could see his two handlers also assessing their dire situation and coming to the same conclusion from where they cautiously stood. One of the enemy soldiers, apparently the one in charge, took a step forward, "Drop your weapons."

Chuck gulped, immediately putting his hands up and stepping fully out of the car. These men were on a different level than the other Fulcrum agents they had just fought, he could tell. This was bad. Really bad.

Casey grimly tossed his pistol off to the side and placed his hands on his head just as Sarah was doing the same. All three of them were handcuffed and dragged over to a large armored van without delay. Chuck glanced over fearfully at Sarah and then Casey. Where were they being taken? Would they be tortured? Killed? Would he ever see his family again? His friends? What would happen to his father? Would he be rescued? Endless questions assaulted his brain, not calming it in the slightest.

"We've got him, sir," the leader of the enemy troop said into his radio after he had taken off his helmet. The man was bald, with a strong jaw line and a sharp visage. The scarring on his right cheek gave him a rough, evil look…this was the type of person Chuck would avoid at all costs if he were ever out alone at nighttime. Or anytime, really.

Whoever was on the other side of the line must have responded into the soldier's earpiece because after listening for a short pause, the soldier answered back, "Affirmative, what…"

Frustratingly, Chuck couldn't hear the rest of the lead Fulcrum agent's conversation because the man walked out of hearing distance almost right away. He could still see him several yards away, nodding a few times and lips moving every so often, until he finally came back over to the rest of the group.

"Let's go," he commanded gravelly. At the order, the other agents spurred into motion. Chuck, Sarah, and Casey were secured into seats in the back of the large van, watched over by several of the men, and before long the van was moving.

As they were being transported, a heavy silence blanketed the van. It was suffocating, Chuck thought miserably. What was going to happen to them? He was genuinely worried. He needed to break this depressing quiet, he decided.

Looking over regretfully at Sarah in the seat on his left and at Casey on his right, the Nerd Herder apologized, now staring resolutely down at his lap. "I-I'm sorry, guys. This is all my fault, isn't it? I…I just wanted to save my dad, and I know I acted without thinking."

"Yeah, you did, moron," Casey growled, tight-lipped.

Sarah gave Casey a reprimanding look over Chuck's shoulders before putting her two cents in, "No it's not, Chuck. I'm the one who started us off, remember? Besides, it's not like the CIA gave us much choice." She looked pointedly over at Casey, "They betrayed you first."

Chuck just shrugged halfheartedly, head still down and distracted with thoughts of Ellie, Morgan, his father and everyone else he cared about. Would they be safe? He hoped so.

Casey seemed to take offense at Sarah's last biting comment. He scoffed, "Walker, you two are the only ones who betrayed anyone. You betrayed your country by going off grid like that against direct orders."

Sarah instantly argued back scathingly, "Well at least we didn't betray our team, Casey."

Casey angrily bit out a retort just as quickly, "No, you betrayed me! Not the other way around. And then you got me into this mess when I was ordered to bring your sorry asses back to Castle!"

Sarah didn't say anything after that, but Chuck suddenly raised his head. "You think we betrayed you? Casey, I would never betray you. You were going to go along with bringing me underground though, weren't you? I'm the one that should feel betrayed here, not you."

Casey considered Bartowski for a minute, before shaking his head and hardly intoning, "I was following orders, idiot. That's what I'm supposed to do, despite what my opinion is." The new colonel appeared to want to say more, but Sarah spoke up then.

"And what is your opinion exactly, John? Surely you don't think Chuck deserves to be taken underground."

Annoyed, Casey replied, "It doesn't matter what my opinion is. I follow orders, unlike you, Walker. That's all there is to it." Glancing around the back of the armored van they were in, and at the soldiers seated around them, he added tiredly, "See where you got us with your 'opinion'? Now Fulcrum's got us."

From the far side of the back of the van, one of the Fulcrum men shifted positions and turned to face them, "We're not Fulcrum." There was a moment of confusion among the three prisoners at this. Chuck answered back first, his voice shaking almost imperceptibly, "You're not? Who are you then?"

"Nothin' you need to know 'bout," was all they got in response from the man. The leader of the group of soldiers was the only one of them that had taken off his helmet, so he couldn't get a better look at any of the stoic armor-clad men.

Chuck turned to Sarah, "Sarah, who else would do this? Are they CIA?"

A befuddled and slightly concerned expression flitted across her face, "I don't know Chuck. I'm pretty sure we can rule out the CIA though. What do you think, Casey?"

A suddenly intent Casey responded, "This isn't CIA or NSA, I know that for certain. And if it's not Fulcrum, then I don't know either. I don't like this one bit."

"Agreed," Chuck input matter-of-factly, not noticing Sarah's busy hands surreptitiously snaking toward his left pockets.

OOOOO

An unknown amount of time later, probably about an hour, Chuck sat up straighter in his seat as the van jerked to a stop. The back doors of the van opened, allowing daylight to shine through.

Sarah and Casey were escorted out of the van by a couple of the men, but when Chuck made to follow, he was stopped and roughly pushed back into his seat.

"W-Wha'? Where are you taking them?" he asked worriedly, to no one in particular, just as Sarah and Casey also noticed that Chuck had not been brought with them outside the back of the van.

In answer to Chuck's question, the leader said aloud, "Roste and Tong, kill them. We'll meet you back at base."

The two agents outside the van, apparently Roste and Tong, gave a quick salute before starting to drag Sarah and Casey away. Chuck's heart raced in alarm, and without even thinking about what he was doing or giving anyone time to react, he leaped up from his seat, slipped the small sidearm out from the nearest soldier's hip holster, and pointed it to his temple in one fluid motion.

Several guns were aimed on him the moment he did all this, but he tried to ignore the fear rising from deep inside. "What do you think you're doing?" The leader hollered from his side of the van, opposite of where Chuck was situated.

How quickly and simply he pulled that off impressed even him, and somehow the enemy agents were caught off guard enough that they hadn't been able to stop him. Readying the small pistol he held up to his head with handcuffed hands and making sure his personal space bubble was not breached, Chuck cleared his throat and tried to sound like Casey, "D-Don't kill them! Let them go, or I'll pull the trigger. You only need me, right?"

The leader responded quicker than Chuck thought he would, "Bullshit, you wouldn't have the stones to do that, boy-"

Chuck, resolve hardened, shot back, "Don't test me! I'll do it! And you can't risk it, can you? Your boss wouldn't be too happy if I turned up dead, would he?" Inwardly, Chuck was having a major panic attack. He wasn't sure how he was able to hold it in as much as he did, but at the moment he really didn't care. He just really, really, really hoped that they wouldn't call him on his bluff, as he was pretty certain he wouldn't be able to follow through with it.

Either way, he had gotten both Sarah and Casey into this situation, and he was going to get them out of it. It was the least he could do, after all, since they saved his life on a daily basis.

Sarah was not happy with this. Chuck could tell by her yelling angrily, "No, Chuck! What are you doing!"

He could see her struggling against the soldier holding onto her, and Casey looked like he might be about to do the same thing, but the enemy troop's leader spoke his decision right then. "Alright, Mr. Carmichael. You have yourself a deal. Roste, Tong, tie those two up somewhere and then we're leaving."

Well, Chuck mused after the leader's response had sunk in, that was…easier than expected.

"No!" Sarah shouted, fighting hard against the agent taking her out of sight from where Chuck sat in the back of the van. Casey glared at Chuck as he was roughly pushed out of view too. He gulped. That look was a _'What the hell do you think you're doing, Bartowski' _look, and it promised punishment in the future. It was actually probably a good thing that he wouldn't ever see Casey again, he considered weakly.

Before they got too far away, Chuck hoarsely yelled, "Thanks for everything, guys…" He trailed off, not sure if they had heard him or not. And with that, he turned back toward the leader, who seemed to be slightly amused about something.

OOOOO

"Thanks for everything, guys…"

Sarah made a noise of distress at hearing Chuck's voice, being unable to do anything to free herself. Casey mumbled, "Idiot," under his breath, but Sarah could tell that there was no real ire behind it.

The two enemy agents handcuffed each of them to a nearby bike rack that was bolted to the ground before returning to the van. The armored van sped off shortly after, leaving Casey and Sarah stranded. Well, at least that's what she thought until Casey fished a pick out of one of his pockets with only a little trouble.

A few minutes later, they were free. "Why didn't you do that earlier? When we still could have saved Chuck!" exclaimed Sarah as she rubbed her sore wrists.

Casey grunted, "Couldn't, Walker. Or didn't you notice the 8 agents watching us back there?"

Sarah huffed, "Well we're going to save Chuck now," leaving no room for argument.

"My thoughts exactly," Casey nodded in agreement. "Go fetch us a car while I contact Beckman, then we follow them. Those guys must not be very experienced…Chuck's still wearing his wristwatch tracker."

Sarah didn't reply, instead jogging straight over to a parked vehicle 50 feet away. They were in a small city somewhere, she figured by the look of their surroundings. Right now, however, the only thing that mattered was retrieving Chuck as soon as possible.

Hot-wiring the clearly aging Dodge Intrepid was a fairly simple task for her, so she had it running within only a couple minutes. She executed a sloppy U-turn and pulled up next to where Casey was standing on the sidewalk, just as he was hanging up his cell phone.

Casey hopped in the passenger seat, "Couldn't have lifted a better ride, Walker?"

Sarah slammed the accelerator down, jerking them into motion, "Sorry, didn't realize luxury was a priority. Now, where's Chuck?"

Checking the screen on his phone first, Casey supplied, "Looks like they haven't gone very far…left at the next intersection."

OOOOO

"H-Hey hey! What are you people doing! I-"

"Relax! We only need a chip off one of your pearly whites," one of the agents grumpily told a panicking Chuck. Holding the squirming Buy More employee's head back, the agent forced his mouth open and brought an odd looking chisel up closer.

Chuck, seeing this, tried to speak despite his jaws being held wide open, "Ahh ah aha!"

They were still in the back of the armored van, Chuck knew, but it was moving slower than it had before for some reason. As soon as Sarah and Casey had been left behind, the team of soldiers had begun to take out various things from the 4 large boxes sitting in the back corners of the van. The boxes were big enough that Chuck himself would have easily been able to fit in them if he curled up.

The Nerd Herder couldn't possibly fathom what they were all doing and asked them just that, but they wouldn't answer him.

The agent holding his mouth open suddenly knocked the chisel-thing against his bottom left canine tooth, chipping off the top of it without difficulty. Surprisingly, Chuck pondered, it didn't really hurt at all apart from some slight discomfort.

His mind snapped back to the matters at hand as the agent released him, saying, "And some blood." Before Chuck could even voice his disagreement, the man unsheathed a large, gleaming combat knife and sliced a decent-sized cut across the middle of Chuck's right palm.

"Ahhouch!" Chuck exclaimed, looking stung. "Okay – was that really necessary? I mean, really?"

"Yes," the soldier impatiently told him, not saying anything else as he collected the blood spilling from Chuck's wound in a small baggie. Dropping the tooth chip into the bag with the blood, the man passed it off to one of the other agents, where Chuck quickly lost sight of it. "There. All done," the agent said disdainfully as he moved back to his seat on the other side of the van.

Puzzled, Chuck cocked his head, "Wait wait. What's going on? Why did you need my blood and my tooth? And can I at least get a Band-aid for this or something? Seriously!"

The leader, who had sat and watched the last 5 minutes play out, opened his mouth to speak. However, before he could utter a syllable, the latch that closed off the front of the van to the back slid open loudly, drawing his attention.

A voice came through the opening, "Sir, the two CIA and NSA agents are tailing us." The latch closed back up as soon as the voice finished. A wave of hopefulness sprung up inside Chuck as he took that bit of information in. Sarah and Casey were coming after him! Maybe he would get out of this alive after all.

He turned back to see the leader's reaction to those words, but his feelings of hope paled at what he saw. Instead of what he expected to see, the leader was smugly grinning. "Perfect," he said deeply.

This caused a flabbergasted Chuck to scrunch up his eyebrows. "Am I missing something here? Why is that a good thing," he muttered, mostly to himself. Everyone in the van undoubtedly heard it though.

The leader looked back at him then, right in the eye, and said, "I'll tell you why, Mr. Carmichael. Because, you see…today is the day you are going to die."

OOOOO

Stephen Bartowski, a.k.a. Orion, pounded his fist down on the desk with a bang. "No, Charles! They can't have you..."

Instead of working on the Intersect like Ted Roark wanted him to, Orion was tracking Chuck from his computer through the CIA-issued wristwatch his son wore. From the moment that Charles and his handlers were captured, he had witnessed everything that had happened after pulling up the displays of nearby street cams, which he could access by tapping into the right traffic servers. A breeze for him, really.

Switching to another street cam in order to keep visual track of the armored van with his son in it, Orion tried to come up with anything he could do from this computer that might help his son in any way whatsoever. He didn't have a lot of time, which eliminated pretty much all of his options. Had he had some time to prepare, things would have gone much differently, but as it was now there wasn't much he could really do. And that frustrated him beyond belief.

"Hang in there, son," Stephen murmured to himself quietly. He could only hope that his son's two handlers would be able to stop them. Distracted, Orion went back to working on the reverse Intersect that would take the Intersect out of his son's head, in theory at least. It would do nothing if Charles was never able to make it here, however.

OOOOO

"How far behind us are they?"

"30 feet, sir."

A pause. "Alright, let's do it. Make sure to put them far enough away so we have adequate time," the leader ordered. The others in the van nodded affirmatively, except for Chuck, who was completely lost.

"Do what? Huh?"

Nobody answered him, so he shut up, trying to figure out what they were talking about.

OOOOO

Sarah concentrated hard on the van a ways ahead of them from behind the wheel of the Intrepid, not wanting to chance losing sight of it. She was fidgeting in anticipation, trying not to think about how scared Chuck must be right now. She would stop at nothing to get him back, she vowed. She could still taste his lips from their little make out session earlier that morning, and she wanted to feel his lips on hers again. "Chuck, you better be okay," the CIA agent half-threatened.

"Don't worry, Walker. He'll be fine," Casey assured, as much for himself as for his partner.

"Yeah," Sarah agreed softly. A silence descended on them then, both intent solely on rescuing the third member of their team. Even if he wasn't much of a spy.

The quiet was broken a few moments later.

"What are they doing?" Casey wondered aloud, watching the armored van begin swerving over into the traffic moving in the opposite direction. Sarah was cut off from following right behind the van by the many oncoming cars that the van somehow managed to avoid. They were forced to slow the car down to wait for an opening, to their combined chagrin. Meanwhile, the van turned onto another street at the next intersection and soon disappeared from view.

"They're getting away!" Sarah cried out desperately, screeching the tires when she finally found an opening in the sea of traffic and recklessly pushed the pedal to the metal.

"Calm down, Walker," Casey reprimanded gruffly. "We can still track Chuck's watch, remember?"

She relaxed slightly with a sigh, a bit upset with herself for getting so emotional. "Sorry, Casey. I just can't let anything happen to him, you know?"

Casey didn't respond beyond giving a nod as he focused on his phone screen, instructing her, "Hang a right once you turn left at this intersection."

The van with Chuck in it still wasn't in sight, but according to the tracker, it wasn't too far ahead them. It wasn't moving at the moment either, which would give some time to catch back up. As they approached closer to the dot, Casey saw that it wasn't on the street anymore. No, it was somewhere to the left of them...like in that parking garage!

"They must have pulled into that parking garage! Left!"

Sarah acknowledged the directions by veering to the left and accelerating through the opening to the multilevel garage, incidentally cutting off a random minivan that was about to pull into the same entrance. Honking could be heard in their wake, but neither payed any attention to it. There were more important things to worry about at the moment.

"Straight ahead," Casey told her, biting the inside of his cheek. "Unless he's on a different floor," he amended after a second.

They sped forward through the dark, cave-like garage without hesitation, inwardly praying that none of the parked cars tried to back up while they were passing. If that happened, there would be no way to avoid a wreck, as they were going way too fast.

Sarah pointed over the steering wheel, "There! I see it - at the very end." Casey saw it too. The van wasn't parked in one of the spots, it was just sitting in the middle of the driving lane right in front of where the lane curved and ramped up to the next level.

As if noticing that Sarah and Casey had found them, the armored van started suddenly and escaped around the corner, driving up the ramp to the next floor. Lips set together in a line, Sarah pushed down harder on the gas and gave chase.

They weren't going to lose her this time.

OOOOO

_Minutes earlier..._

Chuck put up no resistance when he was dragged out the back of the van, as doing so would have been pointless - counterproductive actually, since he would just be wasting his energy. That didn't negate his gnawing curiosity though.

"Hey! Where are you taking me?" When none of the men of unknown affiliation answered, he continued, "The least you could do is tell me what's going on! C'mon..."

But the soldiers were all business, ignoring the fact that he had just asked several questions as they brought the boxes out the back of the van along with him. Standing beside the back of the van now, the men went to work. One man, Chuck observed, pulled out two metal instruments and a handful of tools from one of the boxes, and then pulled out the baggie with Chuck's blood and tooth in it. That was odd...what was he intending to do with all that?

Chuck strained his neck to try and see, but he was turned to face the other way by a different man, who was moving some type of detection device over every part of Chuck's body. It beeped as it traveled over the CIA wristwatch he was wearing, catching his attention. It must detect tracking devices then, Chuck assumed correctly. It didn't make any more beeping noises as the man waved it front of every part of the Buy More employee's body.

Setting the detector device down into one of the boxes, the man gripped Chuck's arm and took the watch off, not unexpectedly. "Hey, I like that watch! Can't I k-keep it?" Chuck weakly asked, feeling like he should at least try to keep the tracker given to him by the CIA, even though he knew his question would be ignored.

"No," the man responded, to Chuck's mild disbelief, as he tossed said wristwatch back into the van through the open doors they were standing by. "Empty your pockets," demanded the man, his voice muffled somewhat by the helmet he was wearing.

"You know, I bet it gets pretty stuffy wearing that helmet all the time. I know I would need to take it off every 5 minutes to get some fresh air..." Chuck started saying conversationally, until the man took a menacing step in his direction. "Okay okay, emptying pockets," he said gulping.

He reached into his pockets to do as the intimidating agent told him, but found them emptier than he expected. After searching all four of his available jean pockets, Chuck was a bit miffed after only finding his keys. He also always carried his wallet and phone around with him...but they seemed to be gone.

Chuck dropped his keys into the man's outstretched hand, "That's it, I guess. I-I usually have my phone and wallet too, but they're gone." Unsurprisingly, the man didn't say anything, instead proceeding to give him a pat-down to make sure Chuck had indeed emptied everything.

Seemingly satisfied, the agent threw the jingling keys into the back of the van just as he did with the wristwatch before pushing him back over to the leader, who was conversing with one of his men by the driver's side door of the van.

The leader turned to Chuck when he finished. The man who he had just finished talking with got in the driver's seat of the van, to wait apparently. The leader grabbed his arm, "Time to go."

Several of the men, including the one that had his blood and tooth chip earlier, packed up the boxes. They poured the contents from 3 of the 4 boxes into the back of the van, but from his angle at the side of the van Chuck couldn't see what exactly those contents were. The van's doors were then closed up immediately and the men quickly made their way back over to the leader, carrying one full box and 3 empty ones.

With a hand signal, the leader and all of the men, except the one that was still in the driver's seat of the van, escorted Chuck out the nearby 'Exit' door, through a small inside area, and out another door that led to an alley outside.

"I'm totally confused...what's going on? Isn't this kind of much if you are just going to k-kill me?" Chuck was all but lost at this juncture, so he pleaded once more for some type of explanation. And astonishingly, he got one. Sort of.

Now that they were out in the alley, the leader faced him blankly, "We're not going to kill you."

Chuck squinted, "But you said today I was going to d-" And then it hit him all of the sudden. "...Unless you're not going to actually kill me. You're going to make it look like I was killed!"

All of it made sense now, after he had had his little epiphany. The tooth chip...the blood...of course. "That's why you needed the chip of my tooth and my blood...and why you didn't look troubled when you found out that Sarah and Casey were coming after me. You want them to witness my fake death so that they tell the CIA and NSA...oh my god. Why would you want to do that!"

The leader denied none of it, confirming Chuck's theory. Chuck wasn't finished, however. "But wait...how would only a chip off one of my teeth and a little bit of blood do any good? They're needed to make it look like it was me that died, right? But how would only a little bit of each be believable?"

The leader still had his helmet off, so Chuck could see his half-mocking smirk. "Impressive, Mr. Carmichael. Yes, the Ring wants the least amount of trouble as possible. And by officially killing you, they can prevent any attempts at rescue. A lot of planning went into this, Carmichael, and it has been going perfectly so far-"

Not able to keep his questions in, Chuck interrupted, "The Ring? That's who you people are? What is that? And why do they want me?"

"Oh, for the same reason as Fulcrum does. Actually, Fulcrum is just one branch of the Ring, Mr. Carmichael."

This took Chuck off guard, "A-are you serious? There's something bigger than Fulcrum...?"

Chuck looked down for a second before raising head back up to look at the leader. "What about my other question? You didn't answer it. They'll never be fooled by just that!"

Shaking his head, the leader raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't be so sure. Technology these days can do some pretty amazing things...such as replicating a full set of teeth from just a sample of one. Or diluting a little bit of blood evenly in an oil-based solution to artificially create a substance that resembles real blood enough that it will fool most tests. And if you combine those with previously unidentifiable corpses, one could very convincingly make those corpses look like themselves. Especially in, for example, an explosion, which would leave very little, if any, of the original corpse - bone, blood, and teeth - intact. Do you follow, Carmichael?"

As Chuck listened, his shoulders slumped. His situation was getting more and more dire as time passed. Escape would be impossible with almost a dozen men surrounding him, and if everyone else thought he was dead, they obviously wouldn't search for him.

Chuck just closed his eyes without replying. That was answer enough for the leader, it seemed. He stayed silent as he was brought over to and shoved in the back seat of a good-sized black SUV with tinted windows.

Their new ride, apparently.

The leader got into the front passenger seat, as some of the other men piled into the other available seats. The remaining soldiers got into another similar SUV to follow the first one.

Chuck observed them with dull eyes, as he tried not to imagine what terrible things might be done to him when they finally got to wherever they were going. All he could think about was that, and what his family and friends would do when they learned he was dead. Those thoughts made him feel even more miserable.

The leader turned and leaned through the open space between the two front seats. Chuck glared at him, causing the leader to smile, "Goodbye, Mr. Carmichael."

The last thing Chuck saw was the butt of a rifle coming toward his forehead before everything went black.

OOOOO

Sarah and Casey were hot on the armored van's tail, not willing to risk losing it again. After a nail-biting chase through the maze that was the many levels of the parking structure, the two vehicles emerged racing onto the streets of whatever city they were in.

Sarah didn't have much of a problem keeping up with the van, even through the sharp turns and while avoiding obstacles, but actually overtaking the van was a different story. No matter how fast she went or what feint she tried, the van was always able to head her off and she would be forced to back off temporarily unless she wanted to crash.

Presently, they were heading down a crowded side street at about 3 times the speed limit. The many parked vehicles along the curbs didn't help the driving conditions much. She scooted up in her seat and leaned forward to see better through the Intrepid's dirty windshield.

"What's that?" Casey's voice queried. Not able to spare him even a glance, Sarah replied distractedly, "What's what?" Her's eyes had to stay glued ahead so that she didn't kill them in a high-speed car accident.

Casey explained, "Down the back of your pants." Realizing that he hadn't described that the best, he cleared his throat, "The lump. There's a lump."

Sarah wasn't able to make any sense of what her partner was saying until it fully sunk in half a moment later. "Oh, Chuck's wallet and phone."

Casey made a noncommittal noise, following it with, "Why did you t-" She drifted sharply around the corner, throwing Casey against the passenger door. Recovering stiffly, he said, "Watch it, Walker! Why do you have those?"

Sarah shrugged as she put on the brakes to narrowly miss running over a teenager that had been walking in the street. "I nabbed them out of Chuck's pockets in the van. The wallet because I didn't want them to see his real name and I thought it would be better protected with me. And the phone I just took because mine was left behind in the motel room, so I thought it might come in handy."

Casey had an appreciative expression on his face as he nodded. "Oh. Good one, Walker. Why didn't I think of that?"

She gave another shrug. "We just need to save Chuck, before the idiot driving that van gets into a wreck. Chuck could die if we aren't careful."

"That moron'll be okay. He's probably chatting about nerd stuff with those guys as we speak. Anyway, the help Beckman is sending should arrive any time now as long as we stay with the van. Those amateurs let us keep our phones and Chuck's watch, so there's no way they're going to get away."

Sarah swerved around a car to get better position. "Yeah, you're right, John. Something still doesn't feel right though, but maybe I'm just over analyzing it. I just want Chuck to be alright."

She could picture Chuck's openly smiling face in her mind's eye and she wanted to make sure that smile never changed, never faded. She wanted him to stay as innocent as he was on the day she had met him. Thinking that raised her spirits just a bit, despite the dangerous high-speed chase she was currently participating in.

Sarah and Casey lost some ground on a wide turn that she wasn't able to cut quite right, making them lose speed. But she righted it soon after, putting them back into the chase. They had just turned onto a long, straight highway, which was actually good news for their car. The Dodge should be able to gain on the van if it was just a straight shot race.

Helicopters could be heard distantly, steadily growing closer. That would be the reinforcements that Beckman had sent, they acknowledged to each other, making both of them just a bit more relieved to know that they had backup not far away.

It looked like this debacle was finally coming to an end with the good guys on top. They would surround the van, retrieve Chuck, and return to Castle so that they could save Chuck's father. Yes, things were going to be fine.

But that's when it all changed.

Just as the Intrepid was beginning to pick up enough speed to close in on the van, it happened. They saw it a split second before they actually heard it.

Boom.

In a large eruption of fiery chaos, the van exploded. Shrapnel flew out in all directions, some small bits even hitting the front of the Dodge Intrepid from where they were 40 feet away.

Icy cold rushed through Sarah's veins, the air felt like it had been knocked out of her. Then the despair set in as she reacted noticeably with wide eyes. An uncontrollable sob escaped her as she saw the burning wreckage, while they continued driving forward. Billowing black and gray smoke rose up from the scene high up into the sky above.

Her eyes were tearing up and more hard sobs spilled out of her as she jerked the car to a stop near the already blackened shell of the van, still on fire.

Sarah forced the door open and lunged out, her eyes pooling heavy tears, "Chuck!" She shrieked, straining her vocal cords and attempting to swallow her sobs but failing. She ran toward the licking flames until the heat was almost too much. "No!" she cried out, barely able to breathe. She couldn't believe it - no. He wasn't gone! No! It couldn't be.

She didn't know what she was doing, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. She paced unconsciously with her head in her hands as she replayed the van exploding in her mind over and over again. Full out sobs were racking her body when she felt a rough hand on her shoulder.

Sarah swung around, finding a solemn Casey. He looked shocked more than anything, but his troubled eyes gave away his feelings. His stoic presence seemed to help ground her tremor of emotions somewhat, and she found the control to cease her crying. She was still a watery mess despite that, showcased by the mascara currently running down both of her cheeks.

The helicopters had arrived by then, and people were surveying the area, which Sarah widely ignored. All she could think of was him. Chuck. Casey stayed standing by her giving that silent, yet solid, support that he was ironically good at.

She decided she couldn't stand anymore and sat down on the hard cement, wrapping her arms around her bent knees. She just couldn't get that picture of the van blowing up out of her head...Chuck was gone. Gone forever. Chuck...

Some amount of time later, after she had calmed down some more, Casey bent down and tapped her shoulder softly. "C'mon, Walker. Time to go. Beckman will want a debriefing, we need to tell her everything that happened. Maybe she'll know more about who did this."

Sarah was better now, outwardly, only sniffling occasionally. That lost feeling of dread and despair was still hovering over her though - that would not be so easy to get rid of. Accepting the inevitable, she collected herself as she sorely lifted herself off the ground, not meeting Casey's eyes.

Casey didn't say anything about her actions, she gratefully took note of. He ushered her away toward one of the grounded copters, taking care of communicating with the officials and earning them passage on board. This allowed her to reflect on things, mostly to do with Chuck, and she was almost reduced to tears once again. She got a hold of herself eventually, fortunately, but just barely.

Sitting on the helicopter, waiting for it to take off, Sarah suddenly remembered something. She clutched at Casey's sleeve next to her to get his attention. "We need to save his dad. I-...It's what he would have wanted."

Casey gave her a sideways look in consideration. Sarah thought he was going refuse for a minute, but then he nodded reassuringly. He glanced back at the black remnants of the van from his spot in the helicopter and muttered thoughtfully, "Bartowski would have wanted that, wouldn't he?"

OOOOO

The figure, chained to the metal chair he was slumped in, groggily awoke in the center of a small rectangular room. Opening his eyes slowly, he only saw a void of darkness. The pitch black room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

The sole door to the room swung open just then, allowing white light to stream in through the doorway and bathe a section of the stone floor.

A man stood in the door frame, silhouetted by the light behind him. His face was shadowed so that his features couldn't quite be made out and his distorted shadow stretched across the floor, almost all the way to the point where the other man sat chained to the chair.

The man standing tapped his cane once before stepping into the room with deliberate, poised movements.

"Hello, Mr. Carmichael. The Ring welcomes you," the Director greeted with aplomb.

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Carmichael Is Me

Number 2 is up! Short and sweet for ya...

* * *

Chapter 2: Carmichael Is Me

_"Hello, Mr. Carmichael. The Ring welcomes you," the Director greeted with aplomb._

The Director flipped a light switch on the wall, turning on the light fixture hanging from the ceiling and dousing the room in brightness. Chuck raised his pounding head up with difficulty, feeling very out of it.

"You're probably feeling a little groggy, I would expect. It's just a little something we gave you to keep you docile while I'm here. So, what do you say, shall we get to business?" the Director cheerily said, watching Chuck's, or rather Carmichael's, reaction to this news.

After a brief pause, the Director dragged a chair from outside the room in front of Chuck, facing him. Sitting in it diligently, he started, "You can simply address me as the Director, should you ever need to. Now, things can go two different ways here, Mr. Carmichael. Or should I say, the Human Intersect.

"The first way, where everybody wins, is also the easiest. If we go this route, you'll find you like it much better here. Better lodgings, better food, better drink, and better amenities. All you have to do is cooperate and tell us the information we want from that head of yours, and all of this," he gestured around, "can go away. I can be quite generous when I want to be, you see. I do hope you'll opt for that option."

Chuck followed the Director's words hazily through whatever drug they had given him. He could understand everything, but he couldn't seem to gather his thoughts enough to respond, and any movements he made were small and sluggish. He also felt extremely tired, but he fought that inclination. He realized that the Director wasn't done talking when he continued on, breaking through Chuck's meager musings.

"The second way is the harder one. And less satisfactory for both parties. It involves you not being so cooperative, and forces me to send in people to do all sorts of bad, painful things to you in order to persuade you to change your mind. Really, it would save us all a lot of time and trouble if you would just choose the first route right now, rather than later, so please consider it. As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. Carmichael, everyone breaks sometime. That's just how it is."

Chuck blinked slowly, trying to form coherent thoughts. The Director didn't seem to expect a response at the moment, fortunately.

"Think about it, eh? I'll leave you now, but remember what I said. Choose wisely. Who I send in next time will expect an answer from you, and will act accordingly, but until then I suggest you sleep the effects of that inhibitor drug off. You probably won't see me for awhile," the Director said with a fake smile.

And then he was gone. Soon after, Chuck fell into an uncomfortable sleep, not being able to resist further.

OOOOO

When he was woken up next, it was by a bearded man of average height and build. He looked to be in his forties, give or take a few years judging by the few gray hairs that could be seen nestled into his shaggy, black hair. And his face...well, his face was not pretty, to put it nicely. It was slightly lopsided to begin with, but with the addition of the several ugly scars scattered over it, the man's overall appearance suffered a bit.

What was it with spies and their scarred faces anyway? Oh, that's right. They were involved in a lot of violence. That just might explain it.

And then it suddenly came back to him...they knew. The Ring knew who he was. They knew about the Intersect in his head. He couldn't even begin to imagine how they found out, he was still trying to grasp the fact that they had. What would they do to him now? The Director's words rung heavily in his mind. This was not good.

As Chuck fully came to and things became clearer, he also took note of the two muscular men standing on either side of the bearded man. One was a mean-looking African-American, while the other was a blond-haired beefcake. He also looked quite mean, Chuck thought, maybe even more so than his black friend.

All 3 of the men wore black and white suits, pulling off the professional spy look rather well. Or at least Chuck thought so.

"Carmichael," the bearded man spoke up with a raspy accented voice. Chuck couldn't really pinpoint where the slight accent was from, but he guessed maybe it was Russian or something else European.

"Greetings." The man waited for Chuck to greet him back, but when he did not, the bearded man moved on. "Call me Ulrich. These two," he said glancing back at the two bulky men behind him, "are my assistants."

Chuck cleared his throat, nervously looking between the three. "H-Hi," he stuttered out with a weak smile.

Despite the haze he had been in, Chuck easily remembered the words the Director had said to him. He also recalled what the poised man had warned would happen if the wrong option was chosen. Just imagining all the types of things that might be done to him gave him goose bumps and made him sick to his stomach - he had seen way, way too many spy movies that had involved scenes of torture.

Curiously, he couldn't help but wonder if he would be able to handle that kind of abuse. The minute that thought came up, Chuck already knew he couldn't. There was no way that he would ever be able to stand up to any sort of torture - just look at how he had reacted when he, Sarah, and Cole Barker had been captured by Fulcrum. That was proof enough right there...and he hadn't even been tortured, only Cole had been until help had arrived.

No, he didn't have the will that Cole Barker, Casey, or Sarah had in them as the great spies they were to resist torture, and he knew it. But could he really sell out his country? Would he cave? He didn't like the direction of his thoughts at all right then.

He was grateful to not be drugged any more, so that he actually realized what was happening around him, but maybe being out of it wouldn't be so bad right now. Maybe being incoherent would dull his troubled thoughts and prevent him from inevitably cracking like an eggshell.

Yes, at the moment, Chuck Bartowski really wished he had more of whatever drug they had given him before.

"Now, Mr. Carmichael, we have been sent in here today for just one thing." Chuck gulped as Ulrich went on. "Tell us this one thing and we will leave. Don't tell us, and we will make you hurt. Simple as that. So what will you do, Carmichael?"

Chuck wondered if Ulrich expected him to say something back, or if that last question was rhetorical. After a moment of Ulrich studying him, Chuck hesitantly asked, "Um, what do y-you want to know?"

"Your real name. Tell us that and you won't see us again until tomorrow," answered Ulrich with a smile showing a mouthful of uneven teeth. Several were missing and the teeth that remained were all discolored undesirably.

Smiling back uncertainly, Chuck contemplated this worriedly as he lowered his head. His real name? Charles Bartowski. That wasn't too hard...but what kind of implications could revealing that have? He pondered this as objectively as possible given his current situation.

If he didn't tell them, they would torture him. Probably into insanity or until he broke and told them. Ultimately, he would most likely be killed.

If he did tell them, they wouldn't torture him. There would be no pain, at least until the next day, the man had said. He could avoid suffering. That would be a pro.

But what about the cons? If he gave them his name, it would definitely lead them to ask for more information - information from the Intersect in his head. His country would suffer depending on how much Intersect information they ended up milking him for. He would be helping these...terrorists, or whoever they were. He would probably be killed too, once they were finished with him. That wasn't a fact he relished at all.

Plus, more importantly, if they knew his name, well, they would have his real identity. They would know everything about him...that couldn't be good. That also meant they would know about his family...Ellie! She would be in danger. Devon too. And Morgan. All because they had known Chuck Bartowski and were close to him.

No, he couldn't let that happen.

Gathering his resolve together, Chuck raised his head and looked into Ulrich's cold eyes, "Charles Carmichael."

This received a bushy raised eyebrow from Ulrich, whose jaw also tightened almost imperceptibly. "Surely you don't believe us that stupid, Mr. Carmichael. Things get much worse for you if you choose that path. Just tell us what we want to know, and continue doing it satisfactorily, and different arrangements can be made for you. Better ones. Refuse, or lie as you just did, and I assure you...you will regret it. Do you want to reconsider?"

Chuck made no outward movement, but inwardly he was conflicted. This was simply not him, standing up to the evil guy that could kill him. Could he really go through with this?

But then he realized what it really came down to - pain to himself or pain to his family. He knew which one he chose the instant he thought of it in those terms. He had to stay strong.

"My r-real name is Charles Carmichael," he shot back, not able to control the slight stutter in his voice. God, what were they going to do to him? Just thinking about it made him want to throw up.

Ulrich shook his head, his whole image hardening, "Well then, I suppose we should start." The blond assistant pushed a shelved metal cart over to Ulrich from the corner that Chuck hadn't noticed before. On each of its shelves was an assortment of tools and instruments, all of them different shapes and sizes. Many of them gleamed menacingly.

Chuck made an alarmed noise as he examined the cart fearfully, struggling a bit against the chains securing him to the chair.

"Oh yes, we will have lots of fun today," Ulrich uttered with a creepy grin across his face as he reached for something on the cart.

OOOOO

"Colonel Casey, Agent Walker. How are things there?" General Beckman inquired with her usual sternness from behind her desk.

Casey gave Sarah a sideways glance, which he seemed to have been doing quite a bit over the last couple days. She didn't look up to reporting just yet, so he stepped forward to give his.

"General, everything is as can be expected here. The fatal car accident explanation for Bartowski's death has widely been accepted with no suspicion and both mine and Agent Walker's covers are still intact."

The new Colonel paused briefly, "I've also managed to thoroughly convince the asset's soon to be brother-in-law, after he unwittingly discovered my spy equipment, that I am merely an obsessed stalker in need of serious psychiatric help. He believes I'll be moving away to get that help by the end of the week, and so has not made any further trouble. That is all I have, General."

He ended as he returned to his original position next to Walker, who still appeared a little unsettled. She hadn't been taking Chuck's death well, he knew, but she really needed to pull it together in the General's presence.

On the large flat-screen monitor, Beckman gave a short nod, "Thank you, Colonel. Agent Walker, do you have anything add?"

Sarah bit her lip as she moved up a step. Her eyes were still noticeably red-rimmed, to which Casey had no doubt the General took notice of. Yet Beckman had turned a blind eye to them during both this debriefing and the previous one, for whatever reason.

"Yes, General. Chuck's family and friends have not taken his death well. I still believe that if we could just reveal Chuck's involvement in the government to them, it would brighten their memory of him. If they knew the truth-"

Casey sent Sarah a wide-eyed glare just as General Beckman took an impatient breath and pertly interrupted, "Agent Walker, I'm going to stop you right there! The answer is no, and after it was denied the first time I would have expected you to drop that notion altogether. I see no benefits in informing Bartowski's family or friends, and neither should you! You are already going to be on suspension indefinitely after your renegade actions with Mr. Bartowski that led to his death, do you really want to expand on that punishment? The only reason you have not already been burned by the CIA is that you may still be useful in the future!"

The General huffed before continuing in a calmer voice, "Chuck Bartowski was an admirable asset to both the CIA and the NSA, and we know that, but the whole world does not need to. Now, I realize that as the asset's handler you had a...closer...relationship to him than I did, but if you take this any farther or decide to bring it up again, there will be consequences. Is that understood?"

Sarah blinked a few times before ducking her head slightly, "Yes, General."

Casey watched her try to get a hold of herself as she closed her eyes. She opened them a moment later, mask of business back in place.

"Good. Now, was there anything else?"

Sarah nodded, "Yes, General. Have there been any developments in the investigation of the asset's death?"

Beckman considered Walker shortly before responding, "Several, yes. The forensic evidence from the van's remains confirm the presence of the asset, unfortunately. But that is all I can tell you - anything more is confidential."

Sarah took this in with only a slight twitch, "I see. That is all, General."

On the screen, General Beckman rested her hands together on top of her desk. "Very well. I have not had the time to do this yet, so I shall now. As of this point in time, Operation Bartowski is officially terminated." As if on second thought, she insincerely added, "Congratulations."

Meeting Casey's eyes from the screen, the General said, "Colonel Casey, you will be reunited with your old squad and will head to Uzbekistan immediately. They will fill you in there. Good luck."

Beckman looked over to Sarah after Casey thanked her. "Ms. Walker," she began, emphasizing the honorific, "you will catch the first flight to headquarters, where the terms of your suspension will be fully made out. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah affirmed. She looked down at Chuck's mom's charm bracelet that was looped around her wrist, playing with it idly as she did so. He had given it to her during that Christmas hostage situation at the Buy More...that felt like so long ago. This inadvertently brought other thoughts of Chuck to mind, but she quickly managed to quell that wave of emotion before it really got rolling.

She turned her attention back to the monitor. "If I may, General Beckman, what will happen with the Intersect project? What will happen to Castle?"

The General stared stolidly at her, "That is not your concern anymore, Ms. Walker. Goodbye."

With a blip, the screen went black as Beckman severed the connection. Sarah turned to Casey, who was studying her intently. "What?" she asked abruptly.

Casey shook his head once and moved away to collect his bag of things, gruffly saying, "Nothing. Let's go."

Sarah watched him go for a moment before slowly following, picking up her trunk as she went. "Right."

* * *

To be continued...


	3. Enter the LID

3 is here! My first update of 2011!

It has been brought to my attention that the title of this fic is pretty much exactly the same as another fic. I swear I had no idea there was another fic with this name - I even searched the title before using it and still didn't see the other fic with the same title. I've decided that I'm not going to be changing the title, but to clear up any confusion, my fic has "Versus" spelled out like so while the other fic by enigmamdw has "vs" abbreviated. Hopefully they won't get mixed up too much!

Also, to answer a comment made in a review, the things that happened in episode 2.21 have not just disappeared. They will most definitely be altered by Chuck's abduction, but it may be little while before we discover how exactly these events played out. For instance, this includes the whole Orion ordeal and all of that fun stuff. Everything will be revealed in time.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! And Happy New Year!

* * *

Chapter 3: Enter the LID

"You know it doesn't have to be this hard, Carmichael. You're making it happen this way, and you have the power to stop it. Remember that," Ulrich whispered quietly into Chuck's ear as he was being carried back to his cell by the two assistants. The foreign man was walking beside them as they made their way down the narrow, bleach white hallway. Chuck's cell was practically in the middle of the long hall, with the ever present guard standing like a statue outside of it.

Chuck didn't even bother mumbling out a response to Ulrich's constant badgering anymore, instead preferring to keep his eyes closed and his weak head down. This was the only time of near relief for him, and he was going to savor it while he could.

It wasn't completely relaxing, unfortunately.

The trip down the hall from the 'torture chamber' to his cell was not a fun one. The unsteady steps of the two bulky men carrying his limp figure jarred his wounded body quite painfully, making him pray that they reached his cell soon. Then there would only be a dull pain, rather than the sharp kind.

As they eventually got to the door of Chuck's cell, the guard opened it and Chuck was tossed in roughly. Because he couldn't stand on his own, he hit the unforgiving stone floor hard.

This happened every time he was returned to his cell, so it was nothing new. And every time, he would stay slumped on the ground in that same position, not able to dredge up the will or the energy to shift even an inch, as he attempted to rest uncomfortably and ignore the pain the best he could, until they came back some time later to inflict more pain.

The cycle would repeat like that over and over again. Get dragged to the torture chamber, get tortured, get dragged back to his cell, try to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

The pain was endless. The torture was never over. Just when Chuck thought it might be done with, hoped it might be, wished it might be, prayed it might be...more came.

Ulrich had mentioned that they were avoiding any sort of torture that had the possibility of damaging his mind or the Intersect inside him, for obvious reasons. At first, Chuck had thought this was a good thing. But when the torture had started he realized that he was wrong. Pain was still pain...it didn't matter how it was caused. If there was enough of it, it all felt the same no matter what.

Electricity was avoided, as was anything dangerous to his head or heart. But that still left the rest of his body open to pain, and the plethora of torture methods that Ulrich seemed to have in his repertoire covered it quite well.

After the first day of torture, they had begun bringing Chuck to the dreadful torture chamber, instead of performing it all in the confines of his cell. They had also removed the chair from his cell, leaving nothing but the bare, cold ground to keep him and his thoughts company.

He had not been privy to the reason they did these things, but he could really care less. It was pain for him either way. Somehow he had not broken yet, nor had he gone insane. At least he didn't think so...it was kind of hard to tell.

Chuck couldn't help but wonder what Ellie was doing right now, how she was taking finding out he was dead. She was probably a wreck - they were siblings, not to mention she had practically raised him herself. He could almost feel her pain just thinking about it. Or maybe that was his pain. He wasn't sure.

He wondered what Sarah was doing, what Morgan was doing, what his dad was doing. Were they all okay? Did they believe he was really dead? How were they taking his death, especially Sarah? Would she cry, or would she be the default stony-faced spy like Casey? Was there some possible chance that any of them would be coming to rescue him?

There were just too many questions that he didn't have the answers to. And it tore him up, speculating about all of these things without any way of finding out the truth.

Chuck's bleak outlook did not do much to comfort him either. He had to force himself not to get his hopes up, for he feared he was alone in this, since everyone who cared believed he was a corpse. And why would anyone go searching for a dead man?

The answer was: they wouldn't.

So what kept him going? Well, he had found something he could grasp on to, something to keep him afloat, something to keep him from giving in. That was really the only thing that had kept him from cracking.

He would be lying outright if he said that that something was his patriotic duty to his country, and he would be lying if he said that he was staying strong out of his own valor or bravery. If those had been the only motivations in the picture, then Chuck would have undoubtedly given in after his first day of torture. Before that even. There was no denying that.

But he had not given up.

No, the only thing holding him together was the thought of Ellie. And of Morgan and Devon, to a lesser extent. His family. He pictured how Sarah and Casey would react to all of this, and the danger they would all be in if the Ring successfully extracted Charles Carmichael's real identity. He wouldn't let that happen - he couldn't. His family was the most important thing to him, more important to him than anything, including bodily harm. That realization was probably the only thing _not_ bad that came out of this disaster.

It wasn't like he thought about all of this every time he was in intense pain - that would be impossible. When he was in pain, all he could focus on was how to make it stop. There was no room for anything else.

The only thing that halted him from stopping the pain, by giving up his name, was the image of Ellie that flashed in front of his eyes every time he even considered the possibility of doing it. Which was quite frequently, as it turned out.

He had no idea how much time had gone by since he had been in this place, the days just kind of melded together. He couldn't really spare it any more thought than that. His main concern at the moment was if there was pain or not pain. Good times were when there was hardly any pain, while bad times were when there was excruciating pain. That was all he cared about...his body demanded that to be his only priority.

Yet his mind was in charge of his body, and with the flashes of Ellie, he was able to resist his body's needs and keep from revealing his name, drawing from some hidden pool of inner strength deep within. It was very cliche, really. But that's the way it was.

His musings ceased there, however. Exhaustion finally overtook him as he lay there crumpled on the floor, winning out over the aching of his body, and he passed out with no further warning.

OOOOO

"I expect results, Ulrich! Explain to me why I don't have them."

"Sir, I'm doing all I can. I can't do much more without causing unwanted damage."

"So you're saying you are incapable?"

"No, Director. I've done everything right. He's just not breaking."

"Well I don't have time for this, we've already wasted enough time."

"...Might I suggest something, sir?"

"What, Ulrich?"

"I believe his refusal to...cooperate...applies in particular to revealing his true name. If we were to move past that and use the LID..."

"And what makes you think that?"

"I don't think he is aware he is even doing it, but during our sessions he has unintentionally let some things...slip."

"Such as?"

"He has muttered a woman's name several times as he suffers. An 'Ellie'...perhaps a lover he wishes to protect, no?"

"...Ah, now there is something I can use. Very good. Your suggestion is merited, Ulrich, and I agree - advance our plans immediately."

OOOOO

The sound of his cell door opening woke him next. As the light flooded into the windowless room, Chuck recognized Ulrich's slow footsteps before he even opened his eyes. Two others accompanied Ulrich's - his two assistants presumably. Unlike other days though, they did not pick him up and drag him to the torture chamber. Instead, they pulled him up from where he lay and sat him up against the back wall. Chuck warily stretched his sore neck muscles and met Ulrich's eyes.

"Oh good, you are awake," Ulrich said heartily. "We're going to try something a little different today, Carmichael. But first, the Director wishes to speak with you."

As he said this, a figure appeared in the open doorway of the cell. Chuck instantly recognized the Ring Director's features as the man stepped into the room, his elegant cane at his side. The Director stopped directly in front of him, looking down at him with cool confidence.

"We meet again," he greeted with amused eyes. "Have you enjoyed your stay so far? Are you eating well enough?"

Chuck narrowed his eyes, but did not voice any sort of reply.

"I see you didn't heed my advice," the man stated neutrally, as he examined Chuck. He continued after a brief moment, "As Ulrich here told you, we're going to move things ahead. We're going to move on to the real information we want, from the Intersect. We won't even ask for your real name anymore, Mr. Carmichael. I assume you do not disagree? You will see soon enough that your job in this is quite easy, you need not even talk, with the equipment we have. All you have to do is cooperate."

Seeing the suspicion in Chuck's eyes, the Director waved his hand dismissively, "I'll let Ulrich fill you in on all the details when I take my leave. But as to my visit, well, you've been here for over two weeks now with little to no progress being made, so I just wanted come by and once again impress upon you the importance of your cooperation. It would benefit all of us, you most of all, if you would concede. I do hope you realize that."

Chuck grunted uncharacteristically, making his skepticism clear.

The Director squatted down next to him, bending his knees and leaning on his cane for balance. He said quietly, "If not for yourself, at least do it...for Ellie." He let the convincing threat hang palpably as he finished, inciting a prominent reaction from Chuck.

Looking as if he'd just seen a ghost, Chuck stiffened and palely said, "H-How? How do you know about h-her!"

The shock was evident in his voice just as much as the dejected desperation. The Director stood back up with a victorious grin on his face, "Oh, I have my ways. I am the Director of the Ring, after all. You know what you need to do now, don't you?"

The man tapped his cane once as he swiveled around, leisurely making his way toward the cell door. He halted in the doorway and, without turning back, evenly added, "We can forget all about _her_ as long as you give us what we want, Mr. Carmichael. And then we all win, yes?"

As soon as he was done speaking the Ring Director exited, apparently leaving things in Ulrich's hands. The foreign man seemed to notice this as well and clapped his hands together exuberantly, "Alright, we shall go now."

Moments later, Chuck found himself in a room he had never been to before. It was just down the hall from his cell, in the opposite direction of the usual torture chamber.

The room had an uncomfortable-looking chair in the center with a mess of computer equipment surrounding it. Small blinking lights of many different colors were visible scattered all over the machinery. Right off the bat, Chuck knew he did not like it. Its intimidating appearance scared him, quite frankly.

"Ah, here we are!" Ulrich intoned at the same time his two assistants guided Chuck to the center chair. Chuck gritted his teeth as they expertly connected several cords and wires at various points around his head and temple.

"What's this! What are you going to do to me?" Chuck frantically asked, not taking to his new situation very well. He was about to demand an answer when Ulrich appeared in front of him and patted him on the shoulder.

"Relax, Carmichael, relax. Let me explain!"

Making inane gestures with his hands, Ulrich began to do just that. "This here is called the LID. It is one of the most advanced pieces of technology we have available to us, and it will be most useful in this case. What it does is it receives encoded image signals in the brain that it's connected to, just as a real brain might, and then displays exactly what those signals contain. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Chuck shook his head hesitantly, "Not really. Why are you connecting it to me?"

Ulrich frowned, "The LID is being connected to you so that we can retrieve information from the Intersect in your brain. You see, it converts any 'flashes' you experience into displayable output so that we can also obtain the information. You get it now?"

Chuck shifted sorely in the chair, still hurting from previous torture sessions. "Wait, so you're like...stealing Intersect secrets from my head? I-is that even possible! And how do you know about my flashes?"

Coughing lightly, Ulrich replied seriously, "Yes, that is it! And it is most definitely possible as long as the patient (you) is cooperating, otherwise it can be quite painful. As for your flashes - it is actually well-documented that the Human Intersect experiences flashes of information when confronted with the right trigger. That is how I know of them."

"What about damage! Won't this damage my brain or something? You said you didn't want that!" He stammered, clearly panicking. Anything that forcefully took information from your brain couldn't be good news, and Chuck wasn't liking the thought of it at all.

Shaking his head impatiently, Ulrich answered, "No no, it is one hundred percent safe and effective! The LID has been tested rigorously without harm. It only seems to work correctly with encoded image signals, however. Any other type of brain wave just doesn't convert right for some reason. But encoded images are what we want right now, so do not worry, let us proceed!"

Chuck gulped, he wasn't ready to proceed at all. This didn't appear very safe to him...it didn't look like he was going to have much choice in the matter though.

Ulrich pushed Chuck back with one hand on his chest, making his back hit the chair's backrest, "Lean back."

Something else was bothering Chuck too. "Why didn't you just use this on me right away, instead of torturing me?"

The foreign man stared at him momentarily, looking like he was considering whether or not to tell him. Finally, Ulrich responded, "The LID wouldn't have been able to find out your real name, as it only works with encoded image signals such as the ones in the Intersect. It also only works if you are not fighting it. If you do fight it, it's only another form of painful torture. But you see, it gets much harder to resist if you are worn down physically and mentally as you are now. That is why, Carmichael."

Pondering this, Chuck couldn't help but dubiously question his torturer once more, "I...why are you telling me all this?"

Ulrich gave a rough bark of laughter, "Because you asked."

"But why are you so straightforward when you don't have to be? Interrogators aren't usually this open with their prisoners, are they?"

Ulrich gruffly answered, "The Director wishes me to be straightforward, Carmichael. This relationship doesn't have to be a hateful one - it can be one of business. Merely two parties exchanging information. You can make this easier for yourself if you wish to. I've already said this."

Chuck scoffed, "Yeah, well it's not really one of business when I'm a tortured prisoner. Besides, what would I get out of cooperating? Apart from not being tortured anymore, of course."

"Better living conditions," exclaimed Ulrich, "and better food and drink! You would still be a prisoner, I suppose, but it would be just like living in a hotel that you can't leave from. It would be luxurious, even. The Ring is not inhumane - it is quite rewarding as long as you cooperate with it. We are not savages, Carmichael."

Chuck cynically breathed out loudly, "Sounds pretty reasonable when you put it like that, I guess. Except that I would be betraying my country and all. How could I live with myself?"

Ulrich hemmed oddly, "You were tortured by me and held out two weeks for your government, Carmichael. Admirable enough, yes, but with the LID active there isn't much more you can do to resist, unless you want to turn your brains into mush. It's taking the encoded images from your mind by itself, so you won't actually be betraying anything. It will turn out better for your country in the end anyway. The Ring will create a better nation than the one we live in today."

Chuck shook his head disbelievingly at this, until something the foreign man said caught up with him. "Wait a second! I thought you just said the LID or whatever wouldn't damage my brain at all! What's with this brain to mush stuff?"

"Oh yes, I neglected to mention that. If you fight the LID for too long, it will scramble your brain. Like eggs, eh? Do not worry though, Carmichael, your mind will instinctively stop resisting before it ever comes close to that. It's self preservation, you see, so no harm!"

Chuck relaxed his wide eyes as he heard that, taking on a troubled expression instead. "Still - that's something I should be aware of isn't it? That my brains might possibly be scrambled!"

He said no more, becoming silent with his heavy thoughts.

Chuck suddenly had a rather disturbing revelation...he had just had a half-casual conversation with the very same man that had been causing him excruciating, and traumatic, amounts of pain over the last couple of weeks. How utterly wrong was that? He couldn't even believe he had been _able_ to do that, much less do it so naturally.

As he pondered that, Chuck was miffed as to why it hadn't bothered him. He realized that he hadn't been thinking about the fact that he was speaking with his torturer. He had just been talking with some person - it hadn't even registered in his mind that Ulrich was his evil tormentor.

But now that he thought about it more, and how much the man had hurt him, he was frozen in fright.

Next to him was his torturer. The man of pain and suffering. Ulrich.

Chuck's muscles tightened up reflexively and he closed his eyes as he tried to deal with the panic rising from within him. He could feel himself sweating and his breathing was speeding up too, becoming deeper at the same time. What was happening to him? Was he really having a panic attack at a time like this?

Witnessing Chuck's change in behavior, Ulrich surveyed him with a practiced eye. A grim smile firmly planted on his crooked face, Ulrich moved away to set up the LID and activate its monitors.

As soon as Chuck appeared to have gotten a hold of himself, the foreign man gave everything a once-over before stepping in front of the main computer screen to Chuck's right.

"I believe it's time to begin, Carmichael," he declared as he started the LID program and readied a sample photo for his subject to flash on.

* * *

To be continued...

I don't know about the quality of this one - it just doesn't seem to flow as well as I thought it would. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it somewhat! HNY!


	4. One Year Later

4 is up! We're finally getting closer to the main portion of the story now! Woo!

Time skip ALERT.

Also, I hate you snow. Go somewhere else!

* * *

Chapter 4: One Year Later

The ringing alarm clock abruptly woke him.

Groaning at the loud noise, Chuck rolled over and reached his arm over to turn off the unwelcome disturbance on his bedside table. Pounding the snooze button satisfyingly hard, his arm limply draped down the edge of the water bed as he drifted back off into a peaceful, floating-on-water slumber.

Seemingly only a moment later, the alarm clock rang again. Sighing into his pillow, Chuck shut it off and tiredly untangled himself from the mess of bed sheets, which he had undoubtedly been ensnared in as he twisted around in his sleep. Reaching back over to his alarm clock, he switched it over to its built-in CD mode and pressed the play button, cranking the volume up as far as it would go.

Drowsily rolling off the side of his bed and catching himself with his hands to soften the two foot drop, Chuck wasted no time in beginning his normal morning exercises, just as Eye of the Tiger by Survivor started playing loudly. His eyes closed, he bobbed his head slightly along with the music during the first part of the song. When the singer's voice came on, he opened his eyes and turned all of his focus to his workout.

After several sets of push-ups, he was very much awake. He let his body sink to the carpet floor for a short breather before - once he had sufficiently caught his breath - flipping over and transitioning straight into his sets of endless sit-ups and crunches.

Finishing those up, with his abs still burning, Chuck got up and made his way over to the other side of the room.

Along the wall opposite of the bathroom door ran a thick and sturdy pipe used for whatever pipes usually were used for. It was leveled horizontally just above his head, which suited his needs perfectly. He gripped the bar pipe with both hands, bent his knees a little, and proceeded to do his pull-up reps, alternating between palms facing toward him and facing away from him each set.

When he was done, his arm muscles were weak from exertion. But it was a good weak feeling, one that came from accomplishing something physical. By this time the burning in his abdomen had long since abated, replaced by only a twinge of welcomed tightness.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge next to the bedside table and taking a swig or two, Chuck once again jerked his head distractedly to the beat of the music. At the moment, AC/DC was playing, much to his enjoyment. He loved Back in Black...who didn't? And it was a great workout song, which is why it was the 4th track on his one and only workout CD.

He stepped over to the treadmill positioned in the corner of the room, setting the three-quarters full water bottle on the nearby television stand. Barefoot and wearing only a white undershirt and boxers, he began his daily run. The light jog went on for only about 40 minutes, but that was enough for him. He wasn't training for a marathon or anything, after all.

A thin sheen of sweat glistened on his skin afterward, prompting him to towel his face off to take away some of the wetness. Getting sweat in your eyes was not fun, he knew from experience. Despite that terrible hazard, however, Chuck liked to sweat. It was...refreshing, somehow. He didn't know if everyone thought that way or not, as he had never really discussed it that specifically with anybody before, but it was a recent discovery he had made about himself ever since he had started exercising.

It was rather odd to take note of such a thing, he mused idly to himself. He was an odd guy though, he rationalized, so it was all good.

He gulped down the rest of the bottle of water greedily, to quench his thirst, and turned the music off just as Creedance Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" was coming to an end. On his way to the attached bathroom, Chuck successfully lobbed the empty plastic water bottle into the trash can by the door with a behind-the-back toss.

"Damn, I'm really getting good at that," he muttered to himself as he slipped into the bathroom and snapped the door shut behind him.

He brushed his teeth mindlessly, just considering things.

He'd been here for just over a year now...here in some Ring base in some unknown location. He knew he was underground, literally, just from observing certain things about the place. There were no windows for one, not to mention that dark dungeony feel that the whole building radiated.

He had lived in this place for an entire year - he hadn't been moved even once! What he really needed was a change of scenery, he grumpily thought. And some serious sunlight.

This line of thinking brought up another itchy subject for Chuck. He didn't know how long they were going to keep him here, or how long they would keep him period. What would they do when they no longer needed him - when he had no new information to offer them from the outdated Intersect in his head?

It already seemed as if they were getting dreadfully close to that point.

At first he had been farmed constantly for Intersect information, all day every day, by Ulrich and the Ring's _magical_ LID machine thingy. That had been something he hadn't been able resist, just as Ulrich had insisted. The LID got into his mind some freaky way and he had no idea how to stop it, pretty much guaranteeing free information for the bad guys.

Eventually, after those first 2 or 3 months, the Ring had apparently extracted all the intelligence from the Intersect that they knew to look for. Because they couldn't just steal the entire Intersect from his brain, for some reason, they had to make him flash so that they could steal that. And there were only so many things that they suspected he would flash on.

Since the day they had stopped mining for Intersect info, they had used him a tad bit more sparingly. He would still be called in for more flash attempts (as he liked to call them), or to ID a random prisoner the Ring had acquired, but those things combined usually didn't take up more than half of his day.

This left the rest of his awake hours open for boredom and reflection, and in Chuck's situation thinking too much was not a good thing. If he thought too much about things, or reflected too excessively, he didn't believe he could take it anymore. He would lose his will to live and may end up doing something stupid.

He still had this tiny bit of hope inside him that he would be free someday, that he would be able to take revenge on the Ring and Fulcrum, for all the grief they'd caused and for what they did to him. But if he thought too logically about all of this, he was afraid he would lose that hope. And then everything would mean nothing...he would have nothing left to hold on to. He didn't want that to happen.

So to prevent that from happening, Chuck did his best to find ways to pass the time. He had even confessed his debilitating condition of boredom to the Ring Director, who shockingly complied with any reasonable requests he made quite readily.

Chuck spit into the sink and rinsed off his toothbrush under the running faucet. Bending down, he cupped his hands under the stream of tap water and slurped up the pool that formed. He swished the water around in his mouth briefly before spitting. As he dried his hands off with a hand towel, he suddenly felt the need to relieve himself. The number 1 type!

His mind wandered on as he went about his business.

Apart from obviously being held against his will in this prison, his living conditions were not utterly horrible. Despite the fact that he was confined to a medium-sized room, about the size of a hotel room, he _had_ been provided with everything he needed or even wanted, that was within reason of course.

A 40-inch widescreen high definition TV? No problem. An expensive all-around weight machine? No problem. An Xbox 360, a PS3, and a Wii? Still no problem. Any games he wanted? Why, of course, no problem. Water bed? Yep. Movies? Yep. Any food and drink he wanted? Sure, to a certain extent. A treadmill? Yep.

Anything he asked for was happily given to him as long as it presented no potential harm to him or his situation. For what purpose, Chuck wasn't entirely sure, since the LID would be able to procure whatever information it needed from him no matter how bored or comfortable he was. The Ring could have kept him in a jail cell and it would not have mattered, but instead he was treated like a spoiled child. Not that he was complaining about that part - he just didn't understand the intent behind giving him whatever he asked for.

Well, they didn't give him everything he asked for. They wouldn't let him have any access to the internet or to any phone lines, or to anything that would allow him to communicate with the outside world for that matter. They wouldn't even give him a computer without internet access. How messed up was that? It had been a year since he had touched a laptop! Was there no justice in the world? It was blasphemy!

And those weren't the only things he couldn't have.

Not surprisingly, for obvious reasons, they did not give him guns or knives or weapons of any kind. They refused to let him have possession of any thing that could be used as a weapon too - plastic silverware was even provided for him to eat for Christ's sake! Of course, he understood why they did that, but still, did they think he would just suddenly decide to attack one of them or off himself during lunch one day? Really?

To be honest, they probably did, he decided on second thought. Or at least they weren't willing to risk it.

But seriously, if he ever really wanted to kill himself and be put out of his misery, he could probably find some other way to go about it. It wouldn't be that hard - Chuck had frequently pondered how he would do it if it came to that. He had more than enough time to think about it as it was. Granted, he had never actually summoned the will to go through with anything like that...he didn't think he would ever be able to do such a thing. Even if he had lost all hope. That kind of daftness just wasn't in him.

He flushed the toilet when he was done, pulling his T-shirt off and slipping out of his boxers as the water loudly swirled down the toilet drain. He started the shower up and hopped in, relishing in the warm water pouring down on him.

Ten minutes later, after a nice and steamy shower, Chuck stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel from the rack. Once he finished thoroughly drying himself off, he wrapped the towel around his waist to form a towel skirt at the same time as he was walking in front of the mirror above the sink.

The mirror was fogged up from the hot shower, so he used his hand to wipe it clean.

He stared at the image of himself looking back in the mirror. He had changed quite a bit over the last 12 months, both mentally and physically. His physical _alterations_ were far more easily noticed, however.

To start, his black hair was the shortest it had ever been. This was not done by his choice - no, Ulrich had had his head shaved into a choppy buzz cut after the first week of using the LID. The foreign man had said that short hair "was easier" and ever since then made sure to arrange for Chuck to receive a quick buzz whenever his hair grew too long. Yesterday had been one of those days - this time one of Ulrich's assistants had given him his _haircut_.

It actually didn't look that bad, he amended as he studied it the mirror. Nevertheless, Chuck had always favored longer haircuts over shorter ones.

His eyes were another thing that were different, although it was something most people wouldn't recognize. They were still as brown as ever, and they hadn't become slitted or anything like that. It was the glint within them that was off. The happy-go-lucky, innocent, normal-guy glint was no longer present in them - it was replaced by a harder, more down-to-earth one.

Everything that he had been through had...well, it had changed him. Anyone that had been put through torture and suffered for any amount of time could probably relate.

He was also slightly...thicker, but not in the way one would expect. Despite what one might predict, he had not grown fat and lazy, nor skinny and malnourished, over the last year. Remarkably, he had instead put on a bit of muscle mass and filled out quite well. It wasn't like he was suddenly a body builder or anything, he was still around the same overall size, but casually using the weight machine that was given to him had built up some muscle on his previously scrawny body. He was more lean and in shape now than ever before.

It was weird because he had never done any sort of physical activity in his life unless it was required of him. But now, with nothing better to do, his physique was great, and the only reason he had started to exercise and workout in the first place was to take his mind off the situation he was in and to hopefully quell his boredom. It was odd, but he liked exercising now. It helped him just as much mentally as it did physically.

There were other benefits of being physically fit, he soon realized after he first tried working out, and so he kept up with it. He eventually came up with a simple routine that wasn't too rigorous for him; daily mini-workouts every morning and weight machine workouts every other day. Plain, easy, and perfect.

He ran a hand up through the hair on his head, or what was left of it, causing the short black hairs to bristle up a little. They looked much better, and much sharper, that way. His hand trailed down the side of his jaw as he turned his head - the shadowed beginnings of a beard were growing there. He would need to shave that soon...but he really didn't feel like doing that at the moment, so he decided he would do it the next day.

It wasn't like he had to be anywhere important where he would need to be clean-shaven anyway.

The small, white scar just above the middle of his right jawbone caught his attention just then. That was another thing that was different - his scars and the other reminders of his torture at the hands of Ulrich. There was an abundance of them scattered all over his body.

Fortunately, there was only one other scar on his beautiful face, and it was small too, planted just above his left eyebrow. That was from Ulrich threatening to slice into his forehead as he pushed a knife tip there. When Chuck had refused to speak still, Ulrich had given up on that front and went on to the real tortures.

The whip scars crisscrossing all over his back were the most glaring pieces of torture evidence. The slightly-bent pinky finger on his left hand, where it had been broken several times without healing properly, was another. The many miscellaneous scars randomly adorning his chest and abdomen more than hinted at yet more torture. And this was ignoring his arms, legs and feet, which hosted another bunch of scar smatterings. Not to mention everything that the demented foreign man had done that had not left permanent exterior scars.

Chuck had had a tough time for awhile there, dealing with the after effects of being subjected to torture as he was, but in time he had managed to recover himself as much as he could hope to. Coming back from that type of grief was not something that was easy, however, and he would undoubtedly carry it with him forever. There was no denying that, and he didn't try.

Feeling like he had mused enough, Chuck made his way back into the main room and over to the closet by his bed.

As he dressed himself (dark blue boxers, then gray sweatpants, then black T-shirt, then white socks), he wondered if whoever was watching him liked seeing him dress and undress...it was something he had considered many times. By 'whoever was watching him', he meant whoever the Ring currently had on duty that was on the receiving side of the 4 cameras placed around his living space. 3 of them were positioned in the main area and 1 was in the bathroom.

Yes, he was monitored 24/7, to his chagrin.

They had told him straight up that he would be under surveillance to make sure he didn't do anything stupid, but it still sort of bothered him. The concern had faded as the year went on, and he had been forced to accept it, so he mostly paid no mind to it.

Every so often though, those thoughts would return to him. He liked his privacy, he always had, and for the last year he had had none whatsoever. There were just some things he couldn't help but ponder in his most paranoid moments. For instance, did they get off to watching him in the shower or when he was going about his toilet business?

He shivered and shook those thoughts away with a grimace. He just needed to keep ignoring the cameras as best he could and he would be good. That was easier said than done though.

Chuck grabbed the gold watch off the bedside table and slipped it on his left wrist with little difficulty, relaxing as he felt the wave of coolness rushing through him and to his brain. He glanced down at the shiny, seemingly normal wristwatch. The miraculous little thing was anything but normal, he pointed out to himself.

The gold watch had been presented to him only about a month ago by the Ring Director himself. Chuck had almost been touched until he remembered that the poised man was the director of an evil organization bent on world domination. Or something along those lines.

He remembered that day quite clearly actually...

_"Eh...thanks? Why do I get a gold watch again?"_

_The Director smiled benignly, "It is not just any watch, Charles." The man had taken to calling Chuck by his fake first name after their first few visits, not realizing that it was also his real first name._

_Chuck cocked his head in interest, "It isn't?"_

_The Ring Director shook his head once and explained, "It's something we only just acquired. We were quite fortunate to obtain it so quickly...the man we took it from is not someone to be taken lightly."_

_Chuck waited for more, but when more did not come, he prompted boldly, "So?"_

_The Director mockingly stared at him, apparently enjoying tormenting him so, before finally continuing on. "It's for the Intersect. The Intersect puts strain on the brain and can eventually cause insanity, were you aware of that?"_

_Chuck was taken aback by this, "W-what? I'm going to go insane! A-are you cer-"_

_With a wave of his hand, the Director interrupted, "You won't. That's what this watch is for. You may not be feeling any ill effects from the Intersect yet, but the longer you possess it the more pressure it will create within your brain, which will lead to eventual insanity. I'm told that this process is sped up for the new Intersect 2.0, but that is not our concern at the moment. This watch will counter any strain caused by the Intersect in you."_

_Chuck breathed audibly a few times, "Oh. Okay. THERE'S ANOTHER INTERSECT?" His heart skipped a beat.  
_

_The Director nodded, "Yes. Do not fret, Charles, you will not be disposed of yet. You are still needed, as we have not been able to secure the new Intersect at this time."_

_"Wait. So how do you know this even works? What if I go crazy anyway?"_

_"I believe it works. The man who originally designed the Intersect also invented this trinket," the man said with certainty. His words gave Chuck pause though._

_"O-Or__ion?" Chuck queried hesitantly. This garnered a perturbed look from the Director - the first expression on the man's face that Chuck had seen that did not seem expertly schooled._

_"I did not know you knew the man..."_

_"Oh, I don't," Chuck laughed nervously, "I have heard the name before. The guy who designed the thing in my head and all."_

_The Director said, "Ah, well, the man still manages to allude us, unfortunately. It would be quite lucrative for the Ring were he in our grasp. Here." Handing Chuck the watch, he went on, "You will wear this whenever you are awake and only remove it when you shower or sleep. Do you understand?"_

_Chuck gave a nod as he gulped._

With a sigh, Chuck shuffled over to the recliner in front of the television and plopped down into it. Thoughts of his loved ones suddenly assaulted him...he wondered how they were faring and what they were doing now.

Was Ellie married to Devon? Were they happy? Did they even remember him?

And Sarah? Was she off being the perfect spy? With Bryce? Was she at least alive and well? Did she remember him? He sure remembered her.

He also wondered where his father was. How was he doing? He knew that Orion had escaped from Fulcrum's clutches, along with the Ring's, but how had he done it? Would Chuck be able to do the same someday? He also needed to thank him for indirectly giving him the gold watch. Hopefully he would be able to do that sometime.

And what about Morgan? His best buddy. What was he up to these days? Was he still working at the Buy More?

Flipping the TV on and picking up an Xbox controller, he loaded up his save on Bioshock and began playing, successfully losing himself in the game and putting those depressing thoughts out of his mind.

Some time later, the door to his room was opened by a solemn guard. He gave Chuck an expectant look, which was immediately understood. His services were required. Or rather, the Intersect's services were required.

Chuck quickly shut the Xbox 360 off and allowed the guard to lead him down the same white halls that he had traveled down for the last year, and into the LID room.

OOOOO

Several hours later, he was disconnected from the LID by a grumpy Ulrich. "There."

Tight-lipped, Chuck made to get out of the uncomfortable chair but was roughly pushed back down by the foreign man. "I did not say you can leave. You are still needed, this is just a short break while we wait for the next piece of business."

Chuck grimly mumbled, "Right."

He crossed his arms over his chest as he waited, wishing to be out of Ulrich's presence as soon as possible.

He hated the man with a passion. And Chuck was not a person who _hated_ at all, but this was different. He truly despised Ulrich...what human being could do what the foreign man did every day and actually live with themselves? You had to be truly despicable to do that, like Ulrich.

There were a few moments of tense silence before the door to the LID room was thrust open. A man walked into the room, shooting Chuck a hard look as he simultaneously greeted Ulrich.

Chuck had seen this man before, many times. His name was Keller, and whenever they crossed paths he always glared at Chuck as if he was dirt. This was probably because of how their first meeting had went, but that was a story for another day.

Nonetheless, it was a given that there was friction between them, rivaling that of Chuck's relationship with Ulrich even.

"Ulrich, _Carmichael_," Keller greeted, uttering Chuck's spy name with unveiled disgust. Keller's hair was gray, his face was starting to wrinkle, and he was clearly past his prime, but the man's intimidating presence had not disappeared with age.

Ulrich bowed his head back, while Chuck did not do anything beyond biting his tongue to keep from saying something he would regret.

Keller gruffly chuckled, a smirk marring his battle-worn face. "Seems like you've learned to not open that big mouth of yours out of turn. It would be a shame if I had to teach you another lesson after last time."

Chuck gripped the armrest of the LID chair tightly. He remembered the time that Keller was talking about. The man had "punished" him after Chuck had been uncooperative and disagreed with him - it was a painful memory for him.

He itched to say something smart back to Keller's comment, but ultimately resisted the temptation.

"Yes, Keller," he ended up muttering quietly.

A sour expression crossed the man's face, "That's Colonel Keller to you, boy."

Chuck couldn't help himself, the words were out before he could think better of it. "You mean ex-Colonel."

The sour look turned to hatred as Keller stiffened. Keller angrily stepped forward, "Why, I oughta show you your place! And I would if we didn't have some actual business to get to. Next time, boy, next time. Just you wait."

Ulrich huffed, "Yes, yes, why don't we get down to business." Keller disregarded the foreign man with a glance.

Chuck shook his head, murmuring, "To think Casey ever took orders from you. I still don't believe it."

"It don't matter if you believe it or not. If it weren't for me, John Casey wouldn't exist. He woulda never been more than a run o' the mill Marine! He still woulda been Alex Coburn," Keller said bitterly, clearly riled up. Keller had told him of his relationship with Casey, or Alex Coburn, during their very first meeting, so Chuck had already flashed on Alex Coburn.

Chuck wasn't sure why, but for some reason he was always able to get under the older man's skin whenever they interacted. Maybe it was just something about him, but whatever it was, Chuck actually enjoyed it. He disliked the man almost as much as he hated Ulrich, so getting Keller worked up was always entertaining.

Chuck, uncharacteristically brazen, came back, "And yet he's more of a man than you ever were."

Keller growled before a crooked grin spread over his face, "Speaking of John Casey, will you still believe him a patriot when he's workin' for the Ring?"

"Huh? Casey would never work for the Ring!" Chuck defended his former handler. Keller was just trying to mess with him, that was all. John Casey would never betray his country in a million years.

Smirking, Keller replied bemusedly, "You just keep believin' that if you want, but I got knowledge that says otherwise."

Chuck gave him a disbelieving look, trying to figure out if the man was speaking the truth. He did seem pretty confident about what he was saying though..."N-no, Casey wouldn't join the Ring."

Keller watched him with an 'I-know-something-you-don't-know' look in his eyes, until finally Chuck couldn't stand it anymore and asked the question the old traitor wanted him to. "Why would Casey EVER betray his country and work for YOU?"

Keller gave Chuck an inferior look, but then one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "You know nothing of John Casey or Alex Coburn."

Chuck impatiently responded, "Then enlighten me!"

"You better watch your tongue, _Carmichael_," Keller reprimanded sharply, pausing before moving on. "With the right leverage, any man would betray his country. That's something you should be familiar with by now."

"But Casey's leverage _is_ his country! And he would never betray it," Chuck said intensely. "I knew you were full of it."

"Like I said, you know nothing," started Keller as his upper lip curled. "Alex Coburn had a fiance before he was officially killed an' turned into John Casey. She still lives today."

Perplexed, Chuck blinked. "No way...Casey was going to be married before he became...well, himself?"

Keller clicked his tongue and nodded, "He gave it all up to serve his country with honor. Puh, what a load of horse shit."

The ex-Colonel continued on after a pause. "And I know he regretted that decision...he told me himself shortly after he made it. But it was too late to change his mind then - everythin' was done. So if Kathleen McHugh is threatened, which d'you think he'd choose - his country or his lover?" He gave a raspy chuckle, showing his unsavory dental hygiene.

Chuck took a troubled breath before saying, "Is that all true...? I-I had no idea...that's awful. How could you actually do that to him? How do you live with yourself? You people really are the scum of the Earth!"

His accusing questions were mockingly ignored as Keller turned to Ulrich, "Enough. Let's get on with it so I can get outta this crap hole."

Ulrich nodded, "Of course." He swiftly reconnected the LID to Chuck with relative ease.

When Ulrich finished that up, Keller called in the direction of the door, "Bring 'er in!"

Two guards came through the open door, holding a slumped figure upright in between them.

Long, dirty hair cascaded down over the figure's face, obscuring parts of it from view. The dirt also made determining the figure's hair color practically impossible. Chuck could tell one thing for sure though, by the long hair and the curves - the prisoner was a woman.

The prisoner was apparently not conscious either, as her head lolled down limply and her feet were dragging heavily on the floor as the guards carried her closer. She was dressed in a beige shirt and grimy pants, and looked like she had been through hell and back.

The guards stopped near Keller and continued holding the prisoner up without being told to. As Chuck studied the beaten figure further, he creased his brow in confusion. Something about her was a little familiar...

"Everything ready?" Keller asked Ulrich succinctly. At the foreign man's confirmation, Keller grabbed a handful of the prisoner's hair and lifted up, angling her face up for Chuck to see.

The face he saw almost gave him a heart attack.

Her face was bruised rather badly and swollen in some places, but it was not her condition that panicked him. Well, it did, but it was who the face belonged to that bothered him the most. He would recognize that face anywhere.

It was Carina. Sarah's spy friend, the red-headed DEA agent.

Carina Miller was a prisoner of the Ring...this was bad. Really bad. How had they captured her? And how long had she been captured?

Chuck tried not to make any outward indications that he knew the unconscious prisoner, or that he was freaking out inside, but he wasn't certain how successful he was with that. Concealing his emotions was never something he had been good at.

Fortunately, it seemed everyone's attention was on the LID monitor, so he needn't have worried.

After a minute or two, Keller broke the bated silence that had descended over them. "Well, any flashes?"

Ulrich scratched his chin, "No, guess not. Maybe she is a new recruit then, eh?"

Keller rolled his eyes, "Maybe. What a waste of time!" He turned a heated glare to Chuck, who was too caught up in his thoughts to react much beyond narrowing his eyes. "Useless piece of trash," said the ex-Colonel.

Chuck gulped, refraining from giving the pissed off man any reason to "punish" him. He knew not to push his luck with the man when Keller was already upset.

"Take her back to her cell then! And you," Keller pointedly looked over to Ulrich and then to Chuck, "return this garbage to his room."

The two guards left with Carina to do as they were told right away.

Ulrich led Chuck out of the LID room moments later, allowing Chuck to get a glimpse of the two guards dumping Carina in one of the cells farther down the hall. That could be useful to remember in the future, he noted to himself.

As he was being guided back to his room, all Chuck could think about was what she must have been going through since her capture. He knew right then and there that he was going to help her. He needed to.

And there was only one way he could think of to do that.

* * *

To be continued...

Next Chapter: Escape


	5. Escape Part 1

Next chapter UP!

After great consideration, I've decided to split this massive chapter into three separate parts. This is Part 1, if you haven't already guessed, and it mostly just gets things rolling for the next two parts. Part 2 will be out in a day or two, after some touching up, and Part 3 will be out a few days after Part 2 as I need to finish writing the end of it. So there, sound like a plan? Good. I'm glad you think so.

Just keep in mind that these next 3 chapters were originally meant to be written as one. You may even wish to wait until all 3 are out before starting this one, which is of course fine by me if you so choose. Either way, it shouldn't make that much of a difference.

* * *

Chapter 5: Escape Part 1

Chuck paced agitatedly around his room, trying to sort his thoughts out.

What he had learned several hours ago had really shaken him. It was one thing to find out that Casey, THE Casey, actually had a fiance once, but then he also discovered that Carina had been captured by the Ring? Talk about catastrophic!

What was this, some sort of sick alternate reality? He just couldn't stop wondering how Carina had been captured in the first place. And also, did people know of her abduction? Or had she just randomly gone missing? Was the DEA not aware that one of its best agents had been taken? They had to know, didn't they?

Did Sarah even know of her friend's capture? That was what _he_ really wanted to know. Everything tied back to Sarah, he acknowledged bitterly, despite the fact that it had been over a year since he had last seen her.

Chuck sat on the edge of his bed, laying back with a flop and rippling the water bed. He had just spent the last two hours formulating a hasty plan of action, and what he had come up with was certainly risky, but there was nothing better that he could think of.

There were endless things to consider, which he had attempted to incorporate into his plan. Even so, a great deal of luck would be needed if there was any hope at succeeding.

He could do this. He knew he could. It wasn't like this was his first escape attempt.

No, he had probably tried to break out half a dozen times over the last year, and although it was true all of his previous "escapes" had failed miserably, he _had_ learned things from all of those experiences. Each time, he had learned something new, something he had done wrong, or something he had missed. And if he put all those "lessons" together now, he might actually have a chance at success. Possibly.

"No risk, no reward," he muttered to himself, faintly recalling hearing that quote somewhere in the past. He breathed in deeply, before letting it out slowly and sitting back up.

It was time. Next he was summoned would be when they would escape.

OOOOO

It just so happened that a guard, the usual brown-haired one, came to take him to Ulrich only an hour later. He forced himself to stop fidgeting immediately.

Neither Chuck nor the guard spoke. He knew the drill and was out the door of his room promptly. The guard led him down the white hallway as he always did, one hand holding Chuck's upper arm.

The hall was empty apart from the guard and himself, which would make it all go a lot easier. Everything was going smoothly so far. As they made their way past the door he knew was the security video monitor room, Chuck gathered the courage to make his move and disable the other man. This was it, it was time to shine.

Chuck tensed up, twisting toward the guard at his side fluidly...and then he accidentally tripped. Over his own two feet no less.

As he fell to the ground, his arm slipped out of the guard's grasp as he face planted clumsily. He lightly cursed as he picked himself up off the tile floor.

That hadn't exactly gone as he had planned, but he could still make it work, he rationalized. Giving the guard an abashed glance, and imperceptibly taking notice of the gun holstered on the man's waist, Chuck apologized, "Heh heh, uh, s-sorry."

The guard gave him a dull look and reached over to roughly grab his arm again, dragging him along down the hall once again. The guard was glaring straight ahead now, so he didn't see Chuck's arm shifting over until it was too late.

Slipping the pistol out of the holster, Chuck suddenly ripped his arm out of the man's grip and jumped back, aiming the pistol up as he simultaneously flipped the safety off, "Don't move."

Chuck really hoped the guard couldn't distinguish his ineptness with guns. He THOUGHT he was holding it right...at least this how he always used to see Sarah and Casey carry their firearms._ It's all about the confidence, Charles_, he reminded himself._  
_

The guard's jaw clenched and he balled up his fists, before raising his hands slightly in surrender. Chuck let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding in and, keeping his distance, gestured with the gun toward the security room, "In. And no funny business!"

He winced inwardly at his choice of words; they had sounded better in his head. Stupid movies and their over-the-top quotes.

Chuck wearily checked both ends of the hallway as the guard scanned his ID badge, opening the door to the security room. He was relieved to find that nobody had entered either side of the hallway and he followed the guard inside, gun nervously held out in front of him.

Quickly sidestepping to the left into the nearest corner of the room, Chuck pointed the pistol up at the other guy in the room threateningly. He wasn't sure how many guards he had expected to be in the room, but as luck would have it, there was only one. The other guard put his hands up in surrender just like the first one was doing, and Chuck again gestured with the gun to the opposite corner of the room away from the security controls, "Move over there, both of you."

His voice hadn't wavered once, he was pleased to note. The guards made to comply with his order before Chuck realized he had forgotten something.

"Wait! Slide your weapons over here, and clean out your pockets. Throw that stuff over here too. Now!"

If the guards would have challenged him and refused, or tried to fight back, Chuck would have been royally screwed. But they didn't, thankfully, and did as he wanted right away. Apparently they thought he truly was a spy, after all.

He wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand as one gun, two cell phones, two wallets, a knife, two ID cards on lanyards, and two key rings full of keys were thrown at his feet. Biting the inside of his cheek, he surveyed the room he was in searchingly.

As one entered the rectangular room, directly off to the right was the security desk facing the opposite wall, which was full of monitors with live footage, sent presumably from security cameras all around the base. Chuck had ordered the two guards into the back left corner, while he stood just left of the door.

He scrutinized the security desk closer to conveniently find several sets of handcuffs in one of the lower storage shelves. That would work perfectly, he decided.

Chuck cautiously retrieved two pairs of them while keeping a close eye on his hostages, and paused, wondering how best to go about what he wanted. Shrugging after a moment, he tossed both pairs of handcuffs over to the two men.

"You," he started, meeting the brown-haired guard's eyes, "handcuff yourself to that bar over there." Chuck glanced at the other guard, "And you, do the same to the other bar on your right."

The guards said nothing, but acted accordingly, even explicitly demonstrating that each of their handcuffs were locked tightly. A little bit of weight was lifted off his shoulders as he realized that they were secured and taken care of. Now he could move on to bigger things and go fetch Carina.

Scooping up all the items the guards had dropped, except for the phones, Chuck nodded to the two handcuffed guards, "Sorry, guys. You're going to have to get yourself some new phones, because I'm not taking any chances." He ended the sentence by stomping on both of the cell phones, crushing them satisfyingly beneath his shoe.

Not wasting any time, he stuck his head out the door, looked both ways, and swept out into the hallway when he saw no one.

He vaguely wondered if maybe he ought to have stolen one of their uniforms for camouflage's sake. Nonetheless, he brushed that thought away as being unimportant - it was too late now, anyway. He would just have to stick with the black shirt, the gray sweatpants, and the white tennis shoes he was currently wearing. The sweatpants _were_ pretty comfortable, at the very least.

Chuck stuck the wallets, ID cards, and key rings in one of his sweatpants pockets and the knife and extra gun in his other pocket as he backtracked down the hallway in the direction of his own room, hurriedly bypassing it and continuing on to the room where he had seen the guards take Carina.

His bulging sweatpant pockets were soon discovered to be quite annoying, swaying as he half-jogged down the hall, and were more than a little bit awkward. Nevertheless, he deemed it as a necessary hindrance.

When he reached what he figured to be the correct door, he first tried the doorknob. It was locked, damn. Chuck rolled his eyes, it probably would have been asking too much for it to be open.

Shooting a couple more paranoid glances down both sides of the hallway, he took out one of the rings of keys and examined it anxiously. There had to be over 30 keys on it! He scathingly wondered why they couldn't just have scanners for the ID cards on every door, rather than just having them for some doors and the traditional lock and key for others.

Scanning one ID card would have been so much easier than trying all the different keys, he inwardly complained. But no, the Ring just had to be difficult like that. Sheesh.

Sighing exasperatedly, he randomly selected one of the silver keys and jabbed it at the keyhole. Not all that surprisingly, it didn't fit. He tried a second one with the same result, and then a third and a fourth, making sure to keep track of which ones he had already tried when they disappointingly turned out to be duds. He went through several more wrong keys before he finally came across a bronze one that worked.

With a jingling click, the door unlocked and he burst in, not wanting be out in the open hall longer than he had to for fear of being seen.

OOOOO

Morgan Grimes burst through the break room door and zipped straight over to the vending machines like a starving madman, startling the few scattered employees who were relaxing there on their own breaks.

After obtaining his snacks and grape soda, he plopped down in a chair at the nearest table, leaned back, and put his feet up on the table top with a satisfied sigh. He closed his eyes and let his head loll backward, a content smile on his face. He had another half hour of this before he had to go back out there, and he was going to savor it.

As he sat there, his thoughts turned to his old friend. Things were irreparably different without him around, and Morgan constantly wished he could travel back in time to the good old days with his best friend. Times were just better then, back when everything hadn't changed so drastically.

The Buy More hadn't changed at all, actually, except for it's noticeable lack of Chuck Bartowski. There were some new employee faces too, but no one that could ever replace his best bud. Big Mike still ran things as the Store Manager, with Morgan himself as his number two.

After failing miserably at becoming a Benihana Chef and losing Anna to that other guy in Hawaii, on top of losing his best friend, he had been in a very dark place for awhile. Thankfully, however, Big Mike had accepted him with open arms when he had returned to the Buy More, his tail between his legs so to speak.

Following that, in a shocking development, he had been promoted to Assistant Manager for the second time. That in and of itself had truly been a godsend for him.

Despite the slightly greater responsibility, with the promotion he was payed enough to be able to afford his own place and get away from his mom's house, where he had been staying until he could get back onto his feet. Not that he disliked his mother or anything. No, that wasn't the reason. It was because Big Mike had moved in, which had caused him uncountable, uncomfortable sleepless nights until he finally had had enough of hearing his mother's screams of pleasure and rented out his own apartment in Burbank, as far away as was convenient.

That day had definitely been a great one, if he did say so himself.

Morgan ate his snacks and drank his soda halfheartedly, mind drifting to his post-work plans of Gears of War, Call of Duty, and more junk food.

OOOOO

Chuck briefly stared at the slumped, barefooted form near the back of the cube-like room.

She was laying on her side in a rather uncomfortable position, he observed. It _was_ Carina, he could see, but her back was facing the door so he couldn't tell if she was awake or not. The steady rising and falling of her side told him that she was still alive and breathing at least.

Realizing that he was dallying in the middle of The Escape, Chuck closed the door behind him and moved toward Carina. He crouched down next to her and reached over to shake her shoulder.

Just as his hand landed on her arm, she all of a sudden started into motion, latching onto his outstretched arm with one hand and knocking the gun out of his hand, before sharply elbowing him in the face. He grunted from the hit, staggering backward and holding his already bruising face with both hands.

He didn't have any further time to recover as she jumped up from the ground and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Chuck barely even saw the foot in his peripheral vision before it connected with his left temple, dropping him to the floor on his back before he knew what had even hit him, and before he could get a word in edgewise to stop her.

Fortunately, her kick had not knocked him unconscious, but it still hurt like a bitch. Standing above him, she painfully pushed down on his chest with one foot. Carina was in the middle of leaning down and winding back to throw a punch when Chuck frantically waved his hands from down on the ground, "W-wait! Carina! S-stop!"

This made her pause as he had intended, so he added, "It's me!"

She squinted at this, looking down at his face closer. From where he was gazing up at her on the floor, it appeared like she was trying to recall his name. He didn't really blame her for not remembering it right away - he had only met her once, like 2 years ago. In fact, it was remarkable that she even remembered him at all, taking into account how different he must have looked from when she had last seen him.

Her eyes widened marginally a moment later and she shook her head disbelievingly. In a raspy voice, she exclaimed questioningly, "Chuck? Sarah's cover boyfriend?"

Carina cleared her dry throat and gaped at him in confusion.

Chuck had to admit, this was the first time he had ever seen a spy so caught off guard. He shot her a hesitant grin and laughed nervously, "Heh, y-yeah that's me. But we don't have much time, let's go." He motioned toward the door with his thumbs, while she narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

"What are you doing here?" she bluntly asked, not letting him get up. Her expression darkened and she pushed down harder, "Are you working for the Ring?"

He jerked his reddening face from side to side vehemently, trying vigorously to convince her so that he would be able to breathe again. She graciously let off the pressure a little bit, "Why are you here then? This _is_ a Ring substation, right?"

"Yeah," he said, "this is a Ring base. Which is why we should leave ASAP!" Carina raised an eyebrow, but otherwise did not budge an inch as she waited for him to explain. With an impatient huff, Chuck guffawed, "Will you at least let me up? I'm a prisoner here too, you know, and I came to bail you out with me! Doesn't that count for anything?"

She glared him down skeptically. "You don't look like a prisoner to me," she answered shortly, scanning his clothing smartly.

"Well, I am, even if it doesn't look like it. Just a different kind," he asserted weakly. Seeing her unimpressed reaction, Chuck added forcefully, "They don't torture me or anything, but I'm still trapped here!" He stopped rambling abruptly, getting a hold of himself and deciding to get right to the point. "Look. I know it looks suspicious, but I really am trying to escape and bring you with me. That's all. Just trust me, please!"

Carina cocked her head to the side thoughtfully, appearing to be consider his words, "I see..." She primly stepped off of him and backed off, her guard still noticeably being kept up. "Okay, Chuck. Not saying I believe you or anything, but I'll go with it for now."

He shook his head as he gingerly rose to his feet. Typical mistrustful spy.

Said mistrustful spy ran a hand through her disheveled hair and examined its uncleanliness distastefully. It was so dirty that Chuck wouldn't have been able to tell the woman's hair was red if he hadn't already known it to be that color. She probably wanted to shower right about now. Yep, most definitely.

He rubbed the side of his head tenderly and shot the grimy DEA agent a deadpan look, "Thanks for the headache, by the way. Just what I needed."

One corner of the redhead's lips curled in amusement, "Sure thing. Now spill."

Chuck nodded patronizingly, "Yeah yeah." He thought about where he should begin and how brief to be before continuing on, "Well, the Ring abducted me, for certain reasons, and I've been stuck here ever since. As I said, I'm trying to break you out of here so that we can both escape."

He shrugged, "Uh, that's about it. We should REALLY go now, before we waste anymore time."

Carina didn't look very satisfied with his answer, but accepted it for the time being. "Fine, but you're going to tell me more once we get out of here."

"Right, will do," he conceded, giving her a concerned once-over. Her beige shirt featured a smattering of dried blood that he had failed to distinguish previously. "Are you alright? They were torturing you, weren't they?"

She blinked, "Yeah, but I'm fine. Why?" At Chuck's dubious look, she clarified, "They haven't gotten to the really nasty stuff yet. Don't worry about me, I'm good."

Chuck, accepting her words dimly, acknowledged them with a slight nod and walked over to the door, waving at Carina to get her to follow. He handed her one of the guns, "Here, take this. We need to head down the hall to the left, got it? The elevator is at the end of it."

He hurriedly reached for the doorknob but was stopped by Carina. "Hold on. Won't we be seen? And how do you know all of this?"

Chuck turned back to her with a serious expression on his face, "That's what the guns are for. There shouldn't be that many guards though. Carina, this isn't the first time I've tried to escape this place, not to mention I've been trapped here for a year now. That's how I know all of this."

"Really? That's interesting," she murmured casually after a moment. "And since you're still here with me I'm guessing your other escapes didn't go all that well, huh?"

He returned his attention forward again, grabbing the doorknob as he airily replied, "You would be right. Now, can we go please?"

"By all means, lead on," she answered back succinctly, checking her gun to make sure it was loaded.

"Thank you!" Chuck mockingly said aloud, before opening the door a crack to peek out into the hallway.

The at-the-moment-not-so-much-red-haired spy added under her breath, "Just don't mess it up."

OOOOO

"Don't mess it up this time, Devon!" Ellie sweetly reminded her husband in the kitchen, from her spot on the living room couch. She was, of course, talking about the pot roast that Devon was _trying_ to make just right for her, after the last two cooking disasters that had occurred on the previous nights.

She heard his voice call back, "Don't worry, babe! It's coming along awesomely, just you wait!"

Ellie Woodcomb smiled genuinely, still amused after all this time at her husband's wayward effort in doting on her. She nonchalantly flipped through the television channels as she waited for her meal, rubbing her enlarged belly fondly.

She was just over 7 months pregnant now, and quite ready to be done with it. She was really tired of being fat and pregnant by this point; she just wanted her little girl already! She wished from the bottom of her heart that the next two months would fly by quickly.

Once their baby girl was out of her and into the world, and once she had fully recovered from birthing, her and Devon were planning to finally move out of their Echo Park apartment and into an actual house in the suburbs. Oh, she couldn't wait for her dream home.

Devon cheerily walked into the living room and sat on the couch next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders, "Should be ready in 10 minutes, El. Just gotta let it sit for awhile." He put his other hand on Ellie's stomach as she nodded, and said, "How's our little princess doing? Is she ready for a home-cooked meal?"

Ellie rested her head on his shoulder, grinning into his chest as her muffled voice replied, "Of course she is." She sighed after a silent moment, somberly intoning, "I just wish Chuck was here. He would have adored her."

Devon frowned a little, kissing the top of her head, "I know, hun, me too. Clara would've loved Uncle Chuck."

"Do you think it's weird that we're giving her a boy's middle name?" she asked, raising her head up and looking into his eyes questioningly.

He chuckled, "No way, babe, I think it's a great middle name. It has special meaning. Plus, it's used as a girl's name too - I googled it. Besides, even if it wasn't, people give their daughters' boy names all the time. I know she'll be proud of it."

"Yeah, you're right," Ellie agreed more confidently, "I like that his name will live on through her."

Devon grinned, "Yeah, and it sounds so much better than Clara Chuck Woodcomb."

This earned him a light nudge from his wife as she giggled, "Yes, I thought so too. Clara Charlie Woodcomb has a much better ring to it."

"That it does, that it does," Captain Awesome assured her softly. The timer in the kitchen went off just then, beeping shrilly, prompting Devon to leap up from the couch. He rushed into the kitchen as he announced over his shoulder, "Time to eat!"

* * *

To be continued...

Do you think Chuck is acting too uncharacteristically, taking into account everything that has happened to him? I'm curious what everyone thinks about that, as I'm trying to have Chuck still be _Chuck_, but also be a more...hardened/weary version of himself, I guess would be one way to put it. What do you guys think? You'll see more of that kind of Chuck in the next two parts too, if I manage to do it right.

P.S. I'm so glad that the Volkoff arc is over, or at least it finally _appears_ to be. Talk about boring. At least I thought so. I really hope the show picks up again, seriously. Next week's episode looks pretty good though!


	6. Escape Part 2

As I said in the last author's note, Part 3 will be out in the next few days. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 6: Escape Part 2

Chuck and Carina crept down the empty hallways with haste, constantly looking behind them over their shoulders. They had only seen 2 guards so far, and luckily, those 2 guards had turned off into a perpendicular hallway, so they hadn't even noticed Chuck and Carina hidden in one of the many small alcoves.

After that near-discovery they had resumed their escape at a more cautious pace, bringing them to the present.

Carina suddenly grabbed his shoulder and pushed him into another alcove, just as a lone guard came around the corner at the end of the hallway they were currently in. She pressed up rather firmly against his front in order stay out of sight, her labored breathing quite audible to him. The redhead was clearly not at her best, no doubt because of the torture she had been enduring recently.

Chuck couldn't even fathom how she had been so casual about all that either. It had taken him months to make any real progress in dealing with the aftereffects of his own short bout of torture, and that trauma was still apart of him today, he knew, buried though it was.

Chuck felt the heat rising to his face the longer they stood in that position, his back up against the alcove wall with Carina's front up against his own. He didn't even notice her body odor, as his attention was unwillingly otherwise preoccupied.

She appeared not to notice how close their bodies were, her focus intently on evading discovery as they waited there several long moments. The Ring suit didn't turn off, instead continuing down the hall at a leisurely pace, directly toward them. He was probably doing his rounds.

As the guard passed the alcove they were in, Carina expertly lashed out and broke the man's neck before he could utter so much as a scream.

Chuck watched the man's limp body drop to the floor, his mouth hanging open a bit. Yikes. Apparently she could still take men down in her less-than-perfect condition; maybe she _was_ fine like she'd said.

The DEA agent bent down and grabbed the man's arms, "Grab his legs, quick! Help me drag him over there."

Chuck did so immediately, and the two dragged the bulky guard's body into the alcove that they had just been hiding in, out of plain sight. Carina took the man's gun, at the same time gesturing that they should get going.

Chuck took the lead once again, but not before handing the knife he had been holding onto over to Carina, figuring she could probably make better use of it. She took it with no words when he offered her it, slipping it into the waistband of her pants. She was definitely looking very pale, he worried to himself, as they moved from one alcove to another down the hall.

The faster they got out of this the better, for both of them.

As they were moving on, Carina quietly spoke up from behind him, "So how did you manage to disable the cams?"

"Uh, I didn't," he said dismissively, glancing back her. He did a double take and halted when he saw her reaction to his answer.

She looked like she had been struck, and appeared to be just a little bit upset. Okay, so maybe more than a little bit. Her harsh whisper tore him a new one, "What! Are you crazy? Why not!"

He put up his hands to calm her down, "Hey, hey. Calm down, I handled it. I took care of the guard monitoring the security videos on this floor, so we should be alright."

This didn't have the desired effect on her, if anything it made her angrier.

"Are you kidding me!" she bit out, gritting her teeth and trying to keep her voice quiet. "There's bound to be other security rooms on different floors, who are probably watching us right now and alerting the entire base! Are you a freaking idiot? Why didn't you tell me this sooner, damn it."

Unsettled, and looking a little guilty, Chuck coughed, "W-what? There's more than one security monitor room? I-I didn't know that...I just figured there would be the one."

Carina scoffed disgustedly and frantically checked both sides of the hall, "And I just assumed you would have disabled the security cameras before attempting this! You stupid moron, you probably just got us killed. I can see why none of your other so-called 'escapes' worked either."

Chuck gulped, his heart was racing even more now than it had been before. "We can still make it out," he said bracingly, "I know I made a m-mistake, but we're not out of it yet. C'mon, let's move."

Without any other options available, she grumbled, "Whatever, we don't have any other choice. Just be ready; if they don't ambush us here, they will somewhere else."

They continued forward at an increased pace.

"If they've seen us, shouldn't there be alarms going off or something?" Chuck curiously asked over his shoulder as they slipped out of another doorway alcove.

Her answer was both prompt and sharp, "No, genius. Silent alarms."

Chuck breathed out disappointingly. He should have thought of that. This one mistake could ruin the whole escape! He just hoped it didn't.

"The elevator is in the next hall on the right, " he informed her wearily.

Huffing, she responded abrasively, "Finally. This place is like a giant maze."

They turned into the elevator hall swiftly, where 3 Ring guards stood stonily. The armed men noticed them a millisecond after Chuck and Carina saw them, pulling out their weapons reflexively. Carina managed to shoot one as she dove headlong into an alcove on the right, while Chuck didn't even have time to aim up before was forced to slide into an alcove to the left, directly across the hall from Carina.

The two remaining guards took cover as well, and with alarm Chuck could hear them radio in for help. This was not good. He glanced down the gun he awkwardly held in his hands as Carina drew the two guards' fire, shooting a couple bullets back herself.

Chuck knew he was hopelessly uncoordinated, he knew he hated the thought of firing a gun, he knew he wasn't a violent person at heart, and he knew he couldn't aim worth a crap. But despite all of these reasons why he should not, at the moment a gun was all he had, and the entire escape may ride on using it. Seeing Ellie, Morgan, and Sarah again may ride on it.

His expression hardened with determination. Yes, it was a necessary evil, he realized. He needed to act. NOW.

Chuck tightened his hold on the gun and peeked out, purposely ignoring the strong inclination to just curl up and stay behind cover.

The two guards were both focused on the alcove Carina was in, giving him the perfect opening. Pointing the pistol and quickly aiming in the general direction of the men, he pulled the trigger multiple times, not quite ready for the slight kick from firing each time. He was able to keep hold of the firearm, fortunately, but his aim suffered because of it.

The first shot amazingly clipped one of the guard's outstretched arms, causing the man to drop his gun. The rest of his bullets (he couldn't remember how many he actually fired off) were widely off-target, but were not completely useless in that they diverted the second guard's attention from Carina. The second man fired on Chuck from behind cover, just as Carina lunged out from her alcove and delivered a kill shot to the first guard's skull.

The redheaded spy then made a reckless dash toward the wall the last guard was using as cover. Seeing a chance to assist, Chuck peeked out from his cover once again and shot two bullets of cover fire, trapping the last guard behind his cover until it was too late. Carina reached the guard, who wasn't expecting her to be so close, and put a bullet through his brains before he could react.

She threw one of her guns to the floor, presumably because it was out of ammo, and replaced it with one of the deceased guards' guns. Chuck mimicked her and picked up one of the guard's guns too, dropping his previous one to the ground. He didn't think his old gun's clip was empty, but just to be safe he decided to switch it out. His new gun had been held by the very first guard out of the three that Carina had put down, ensuring that it had a full clip.

Carina turned to him with a grim smile, "Good jo-"

The elevator doors started opening just then, cutting her off as she whipped around, pointing both of her guns in that direction. Chuck did as she did with his own pistol, slowly backing away from the elevator as she was also doing.

The doors slid open to reveal another group of Ring guards standing inside the large elevator, 6 of them at least. As soon as Carina saw them she immediately began firing at them, spinning around at the same time and shouting, "Run!"

The Ring suits took cover inside the elevator, giving Chuck and Carina the time they needed to get out of the open room. Carina shot a few more wild shots behind her without looking back as she sprinted to the hallway they had just come from. Chuck ran at her side like he had never ran before, like his life depended on it.

The hallway curved a bit, to their fleeing advantage. Chuck weakly intoned, "The elevator was supposed to be our way out..."

"Well, that's not happening, " Carina shouted back, shooting a quick glance behind them, "There's gotta be another way - what about stairs?"

"The stairs, " he exclaimed through labored breathing, kicking himself even as the gears in his head were turning, "Of course! Why didn't I think of that sooner? Next turn on the left!"

They kept up their pace until they came to the point where another hall branched off to the left, slowing a bit as they approached it. Out of nowhere, guards turned into the hallway further up ahead and began running toward them from that direction. Ulrich was leading them, Chuck saw, as their eyes met. The foreign man's face was contorted in an ugly sneer, promising abuse should he ever catch him.

Chuck faltered a moment, but recovered himself as he heard Carina swearing under her breath beside him. With guards chasing them from behind, and Ulrich and his group of guards coming at them from the front, there was only one place they could go.

The two escapees took off down the hall branching left at the same time, accelerating to a pace even faster than before, their adrenaline pumping.

Chuck kept anxiously waiting to be gunned down from behind, since the hallway they were currently racing through was as straight as an arrow and therefore had no cover for them to escape behind, but the gunfire never came. He swiveled his neck back to check behind them only to see the guards hot on their tail, less than 40 feet away and gaining. Yet, even when they could have easily hit them from that distance, they weren't shooting.

And then it finally occurred to him. It was because of him - that was why. This revelation shed light on the absence of gunfire quite plainly. They didn't want to risk killing the Intersect. It was so simple and obvious, but he still hadn't realized it until just now.

Carina was right, he noted with a hint of bitterness, his lack of common sense was going to get them killed. His thoughts suddenly jumped ahead. This new development could be used to their advantage, if handled correctly.

Blatantly ignoring the fear bubbling within out of sheer urgency, Chuck slowed for just a second and maneuvered directly behind Carina, quickly regaining his prior speed. She must have seen him shift positions out of the corner of her eye, because she looked back at him questioningly.

Chuck waved his arm in a 'keep moving' gesture as he puffed out, "Don't ask, just run faster!"

Carina's lips thinned, but she didn't voice any disagreement and briskly returned her focus forward.

Chuck reckoned Ulrich and the rest of the Ring suits wouldn't be as adverse to shooting Carina as they were to him, so as long as he was between them and her, the two of them should be safe. Well, relatively speaking that is. He did his best not to dwell on all the horrible things that could happen to him in this scenario should their pursuers decide to change their minds.

They reached the door to the stairs at the end of hall, as Carina efficiently took down a guard standing in their way with just two shots. Chuck rapidly scanned one of the ID cards he had acquired against the scanner on the wall, and the door unlocked with a loud click.

Carina flung the door open and then shot the scanner pad before moving through the door, Chuck right behind her. She pushed the door closed once they were both through, and it emitted another click as it automatically locked.

The destroyed scanner would make getting through the door difficult, he realized. It was a good thing Carina was here, because he definitely wouldn't have ever thought of doing something like that. She gave him a clever smirk and started up the steps, taking two at a time. Chuck followed a few steps behind her, pondering the layout of the Ring base as he did so.

He had already determined that he was underground ages ago, but he didn't know much apart from that. In fact, he had never even been taken to these stairs before, as he was always transported via the elevator on the rare occasion that they needed him on a different level. Just from seeing the buttons in the elevator during those instances, he knew that there were 4 basement levels total in the facility.

For his entire year there he'd lived on B2, the second basement floor, and had only ever been brought to B1. Never had he had the chance to set foot in B3 or B4, and he couldn't possibly imagine what those two levels contained. It was probably something dangerous, or highly secret, or something of the like; all the more reason for him to stay away from them. As far as Chuck was concerned, anything like that only caused trouble, and he spoke from experience in that regard.

After climbing several sets of winding stairs that reminded him very much of the dirty, stone stairways you might find in a parking garage, they reached B1 and it's door. Carina, it seemed, was intelligent enough to discern that this was not the level they wanted and didn't slow beyond peeking through the small, rectangular window above the doorknob, continuing on to traverse more stairs without a backward glance.

As Chuck passed the doorway, he too gazed through the door window and caught a glimpse of guards at the end of the B1 hallway running toward the stairs. It was only a glimpse, however, before he was moving on and bounding up the next set of stairs.

When they finally attained street level, Carina flung the door open and they emerged out of the stairway into the main area. They came out into another hallway, though a short one, and instead of pure whiteness, they were greeted by brownish carpet and off-white colored walls. Several paintings and framed photographs hung along the walls on either side.

The stairway door slammed shut behind them with a bang, spurring them into motion once again. They soon came to the end of the short, decorated hall and out into a larger area. What met them there was a surprise.

Office cubicles. Men and women in suits and dress pants sitting at desks in square cubicles and offices, apparently doing white-collar work. Employees bustled around, busily going about their jobs. It actually looked exactly as a normal office might look, which was slightly ruffling.

The Ring base was under this? An office? Chuck couldn't help but outwardly squint in disbelief. What? No way!

Furthermore, he wondered, was this office part of the Ring too? Or was it not? How did they even fit together at all? There were just too many unknowns.

For now though, Chuck chastised his curiosity, for they needed to concentrate on getting away. Chuck scanned the room searchingly for exits as Carina likewise did the same.

The massive open room had large windows covering the length of two of its walls, allowing bright sunlight to shine through quite magnificently. Or at least he thought so, as it had been a very long time since he had seen any real daytime sun. He was undoubtedly a bit biased in that regard.

Dozens and dozens of office cubicles were crowded around each other in the center section of the room, leaving wide gaps around the borders. Along the walls were probably a dozen more offices, where Chuck logically assumed the more important employees worked out of. Copiers and other odd machines and tables were positioned around the office space seemingly at random.

All in all, it seemed pretty ordinary from anywhere you looked.

He pinpointed two different exits in the room. One was an open doorway in the middle of the wall to their right, which appeared to lead to another section of the building. The other was an emergency exit, denoted by the bright red sign above it, that was on the opposite side of the room in the left corner. The emergency exit was most likely their ideal option, he considered, but it was also farther away. It was really fifty-fifty, he decided.

This failed to take into account the group of Ring guards that swiftly flooded into the room at that moment from the door on the right wall, headed by none other than Ulrich himself. It seemed the deranged foreign man had found another way up from B2. The elevator, probably.

Chuck and Carina, their backs to one of the office's plaster walls, could only stand there as the Ring guards loosely approached them just as more guards swept into the room from the stairway behind them, finally catching up.

The majority of office workers had become aware of the commotion by this point in time, and were clamoring chaotically in their attempt to flee. Papers were flying everywhere, for some odd reason, and Chuck watched on as pandemonium ensued.

Over the ruckus, they heard Ulrich's voice come across the intercom, "Ah, Carmichael, trying to escape again, eh?" The foreign man tsked, "But what will you do now, I wonder? You have nowhere else to run." Chuck looked back over to where he had first noticed the foreign man near the door and saw a microphone in the man's hand. Ulrich leered threateningly from where he stood.

Was it really over already? Would they really be stopped here, so close to escaping? Chuck couldn't help but droop a bit as he considered the situation. The whole thing seemed rather hopeless from a glance.

As he looked around, a wisp of an idea suddenly began budding inside his overwhelmed brain. One that would either enable their escape, or completely ruin it, possibly killing them all in the process. The question was, would he really be able to go through with it despite the risk?

His options limited, Chuck closed his eyes tiredly and hesitantly raised his arms up in surrender.

OOOOO

Sarah descended the stairs in a flurry of rapid footwork and slipped out the door, power-walking through the crowded walkway with fervor. This was not an easy feat, as she was wearing black high-heeled shoes, but she _was_ Sarah Walker, after all. She could do anything. Even that.

She weaved in and out of the various men and women she passed, practically diving into the elevator as its doors began closing, earning her several odd stares from the group of people already inside it.

Flipping her blond locks and catching her breath, she glared back at them in consternation after pressing the button she wanted. They all looked away as soon as she met their eyes, avoiding her stolid gaze for the remainder of the elevator ride.

Which was just fine with her. Perfect, actually. Stupid pen-pushers.

When the elevator finally lowered to her desired floor level and dinged, Sarah sighed and exited, her heels clicking on the tile floor beneath her feet. Her scratchy dress outfit was ridiculously uncomfortable, so much so that she quite seriously considered the idea of just ripping it all off right there and going around half-naked the rest of the day. Her rational side took over at that point, however, preventing her from doing any such thing. That was probably good, too. Her reputation here had already suffered enough as it was.

She had to consciously fight to contain the groan that wanted to escape. She would never get used to this. Never.

Reaching the correct office door, Sarah knocked twice in quick succession before opening it and striding in.

"Glad of you to join us, Ms. Walker," General Beckman greeted from behind her desk, one eyebrow raised sternly.

Two men were standing behind her with neutral expressions on their faces. One of them, the older one with gray hair, she immediately recognized as CIA Director Anderson, who she knew to be Director Graham's replacement. The strict man addressed her with a slight nod. The other man was much younger, but unfamiliar to her, though he grinned handsomely at her anyway.

Taking her seat in one of the seats facing Beckman's desk, Sarah apologetically explained, "Sorry, General, the meeting I was in ran a bit late. You wanted to speak with me?"

Beckman removed her reading glasses and carefully folded them in her hands, "Yes, involving rather important matters. You recall your work involving Fulcrum, correct? And your recent organizing of the files pertaining to an organization designated as the Ring?"

Sarah cautiously nodded, "Yes, but what does th-"

General Beckman cut in, "What do you remember of their connection?"

Sarah glanced at both of the men in the room, who frustratingly weren't giving her any hints as to where this discussion was leading. She sat up straighter in her chair, "Well, all the files that I 'organized' were classified above my security clearance, so I don't know anything more than the fact that Fulcrum is just one part of the Ring."

And it was true. All of the files she'd sifted through were sealed and top secret, so she couldn't read anything inside them. This made her job of organizing the files on the mysterious organization that was the Ring woefully inefficient, in her opinion, but the CIA did not feel that way it seemed. Granted, she only had to sort them into broad categories based on their titles and then file them away in the designated filing cabinets, but still.

Beckman shot a look behind her at Director Anderson, saying, "Very well, as I expected. This brings us to why I called you here." Pausing, the prim woman examined Sarah before going on. "Your indefinite suspension is now terminated, as of this moment, and I would like to return you to the field as soon as you are ready."

Sarah shifted in her chair at the General's announcement, hope flushing through her veins. "Really? I mean, yes, General. I'm ready now," she said, noting with a mental grimace at how eager she sounded even to her own ears.

She could tell Beckman had not missed her eagerness either, if only from the veiled amusement underlying her next words, "Good. Just what I wished to hear, Agent Walker. Now, a spot has just opened up, and I, and Director Anderson here, would like you to fill it and be apart of a team tasked with bringing down the Ring. On top of your many skills, your prior experience with Fulcrum would be a great asset to this operation. Do you accept?"

Her heart skipped a couple beats as she heard the General's offer. She couldn't believe it! Her stint as a desk worker was finally over, and now she could be part of a new mission too? It was almost too good to be true.

"Yes, I do, General," Sarah answered, smiling. She hadn't been this overjoyed since...well, since _him_. Her smile faded a bit as her thoughts threatened to wander to the past, but she managed to return her focus back to the present in order to hear her superior's briefing.

"I knew we could count on you," Beckman said before glancing back over to Director Anderson, "Director, I believe you can take it from here."

Director Anderson gave her a polite nod, "Ahem, yes, well now that you are on board Ms. Walker, we can finally get down to the real business. Welcome to the team, by the way. As the General mentioned, the endgame objective is taking down the organization known as the Ring in its entirety, which is no small task I'm sure you're aware.

"It won't be easy, and it will be a long-term assignment. I'll only say it once: if you aren't completely devoted to this mission, or if you don't want to jump into something this big, then you might as well quit now and wait for another assignment. Just say the word, and you can leave without consequence. I'm certain the General could find another assignment more to your liking if you so choose."

The CIA Director looked to her inquisitively, but Sarah just blinked. No way was she going to turn this kind of thing down. Uh uh.

The Director correctly took this lack of speech as his cue to go on. "Alright, don't say I didn't warn you. You're in this thing for good now. Got it?"

Sarah agreed with a nod.

Director Anderson cleared his throat, "Okay, first off, you'll have to be briefed on everything we know about the Ring and your clearance level will be raised appropriately. We'll get to more on that later. You'll be based out of one of our safe houses, but you will be moving quite a bit as you get sent on the various missions given to you. So far this is pretty standard, is it not?"

"Yes, sir," she conceded amiably.

The older man's eyes studied her intently before saying, "Now, as I understand it, Agent Walker, you've had something of a run-in with the Ring in the past, have you not?"

Even as the man was finishing, General Beckman whirled around in her chair, sharply reprimanding the man, "Gregory!"

Director Anderson, or Gregory, kept his narrowed eyes fixed on Sarah, "Relax, Diane. She would have needed to be told at some point."

The General turned back around to her desk, her lips puckered bitterly, but did not voice any further disagreement. Sarah, mystified by the man's words, peered in confusion at Beckman. The General just stared back unhelpfully, so she uncertainly replied, "I'm not sure what you mean, sir. I don't believe I've ever come across the Ring before in my career."

Anderson gave her a grim look, "Oh, you most definitely have, Ms. Walker, whether you're aware of it or not. I see that it is the latter, however." He stopped to glance down at Beckman in her seat before meeting her eyes again, "It is best we do this now, I think, as doing it later would only make it worse."

Sarah couldn't distinguish what the man could possibly be talking about, but General Beckman obviously knew. She wasn't sharing, however.

Sarah really disliked not being in the know. It appeared the younger man, who had yet to speak, also seemed to be at a loss judging from his creased brow. That meant she wasn't the only one in the dark, at least.

"The run-in I am referencing is actually directly related to why you are here today, you see, and why you have been suspended from active duty for the last year. The Ring's actions resulted in us losing a rather valuable asset at the time, if you don't recall."

Director Anderson's last statement was when it really hit her, what he was saying. Her mind began to connect the dots shortly after, and suddenly she wasn't feeling so hot.

The expression on her face must have displayed her emotions quite plainly, as the Director unsympathetically commented, "Ah, so it seems you have figured it out. Yes, those were Ring operatives that you met that day, and it is highly likely that you will face off with those types again, Agent Walker. Is that going to be a problem?"

Sarah's jaw clenched as she regained control of herself, "No, sir. I look forward to it."

"Good, I'm glad. Use that information well; allow it to fuel your fight against them. It will make you that much more focused. Just remember not to let it take over and compromise or jeopardize the mission in any way. Understand?" the Director strictly said, his tone hardening on the last word.

"Of course, sir," she automatically responded, back in business. She snapped her gaze back to General Beckman, who seemed to be in the process of attempting to ascertain her mental stability. Sarah refused to back down, and stared back resolutely.

The CIA Director went on when her attention returned to him, "Moving on, for this operation you'll be working alongside a small team of experts, both inside and out of the CIA. The best of the best, Agent Walker. That right there should show you just how much of a threat the Ring and its subsidiaries are to us. They have been a thorn in our side for far too long, and they need to be put down for good.

"Your team is just one of several we have assembled for this specific task, but each team will be working separately. You're team is Alpha, any questions?"

Sarah curiously asked, "How many other teams are there, sir?"

Director Anderson sniffed and indirectly answered, "Teams Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo have already been commissioned and are up and running as we speak. It's about time for Team Alpha to join them, wouldn't you say?"

She frowned thoughtfully, that was a bit odd. "So my team, are they here in D.C.?"

The Director nodded, "Yes, of course. In fact, one member of your team is here right now." Stepping over to the younger man and placing a hand on his shoulder, Anderson introduced him, "Agent Walker, I'd like you to meet Agent Shaw. He'll be leading Team Alpha."

The black-haired man walked around the desk and shook her hand sturdily, his black eyes piercing her own, "Hello, Agent Walker. Call me Daniel."

* * *

To be continued...

I initially meant for the scene with Sarah to be a lot shorter than it actually turned out to be. Heh, guess I got a little carried away when I was writing it.

Gonna go watch me some Community now! Until next time...


	7. Escape Part 3

The third and final part of Escape is here!

Yes, unfortunately, Shaw will be in this story. He won't show up that much until a little later on though, if that helps. I am going to keep to canon in regards to him though. I know many people hate him - well, ahem, most people - but he's gotta be a part of the story. It's unavoidable. Just remember, if your Shaw-despising gets to be too much while you're reading, you can be comforted in the fact that he'll get what's due to him in the end.

* * *

Chapter 7: Escape Part 3

_His options limited, Chuck closed his eyes tiredly and hesitantly raised his arms up in surrender._

Carina turned to him, at the same time scanning her general area peripherally, harshly whispering, "WHAT do you think you're doing? They'll kill us!"

His hands still up, Chuck quietly murmured out the corner of his mouth, "Just go with it!"

It was a few moments before Carina put her hands up also, seemingly deciding to trust him. Or maybe she didn't think she had any other choice. That was probably the more reasonable explanation.

Ulrich's voice came over the intercom again, "Drop your weapons. And Carmichael, you step forward."

Chuck had no idea if this hare-brained idea would even work, but it was all he could come up with, and he really didn't want think too much on it lest he chicken out, so he acquiesced right away. As he bent down to place his gun on the ground, he tilted his head down, concealing his lips from everyone's direct line of sight. Just loud enough for Carina to hear, he muttered under his breath, "Get cover when I signal."

He straightened and approached the group of guards cautiously.

Out of the dozen or so Ring men, over half were merely sporting dress suits and holding pistols, while the rest of them were fully suited up like true soldiers, with an assortment of guns, helmets, boots, and vests that held extra supplies for easy access. One specific thing Chuck noticed on those vests were the grenades suspended near the stomach area on each of them. Seeing those little death balls were what had inspired this plan in the first place, you might say.

You could also say that his plan was rather...explosive. Because of that, it was probably for the best that the last of the office workers had finally finished evacuating, leaving just the Ring bunch and the two escapees.

When Chuck neared, one of the Ring suits grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to the cluster of guards, out of the line of fire. The other men, practically next to him, kept their guns pointed at Carina.

The redhead was not happy about her current position, if her troubled facial expression was anything to go by. Suspicion was practically radiating off her as she saw Chuck being pulled next to the guards.

Now, if someone would have told him he would be in this situation 12 hours ago, Chuck would have thought they were delusional. He just wasn't the type of guy that did these kinds of things or got into these kinds of messes. He especially wouldn't have believed he would ever have the courage to do what he did next. But, put in this situation and being so close to getting away, well, he just couldn't give it all up and go back.

They had come so far, only to be stopped now? Carina would be killed and then he would be imprisoned, once again, for who knew how long. That didn't sound favorable to him at all. No, an opportunity like this probably wouldn't ever show itself again. Which meant he needed to take it now, before it withered away.

And so he acted.

Chuck knew he had changed over the last year - over the last several years actually. He was no longer that innocent Buy More employee that he'd always been and always thought he would be. He was even changing in that very moment, it seemed. What he'd been through and his actions to combat those experiences kept influencing him more and more, and truthfully, he wasn't sure he even recognized himself anymore.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, as he knew he was still Him. But he was not the _same_ Him. He was an altered Him, so to speak. Different. What he did next was just one demonstration of how different a person he had become, whether for the better or for the worse. He wasn't entirely sure presently.

And he didn't want to seem like a one trick pony or anything, but it had worked before, so why shouldn't he use his enemies' weapons against them again now? Really, it was the only he could do in this situation that would give them the chance to continue their escape. Besides, it partially made up for his nonexistent fighting skills, and it hadn't failed him before, so why should it now? He would even argue that it'd be almost criminal not to use every advantage he could get his hands on.

It was shockingly easy, he mused to himself even as he did it, almost too easy.

Before the Ring suit could properly bind his arms, Chuck slipped out of the man's grasp, reached over to the vest of the soldier next to him - whose attention was conveniently focused on aiming at Carina, as were his fellows - and grabbed one of the grenades that were just hanging there. The Ring suit who had been holding him realized what he was doing, but it was already too late. Chuck gripped the grenade, pulled the pin out, and lightly tossed it to ground amid the hodgepodge of guards before the man could stop him.

Several things simultaneously happened in that moment. Unaware of Chuck's actions, Ulrich started, "Kill he-" but his unfinished demand was cut off by both the Ring suit's (the one who had been holding Chuck) shout of warning and Chuck's own cry of "NOW!".

Carina, at Chuck's pronouncement, lunged behind a copier machine sitting up against the nearby wall, while the guards, having comprehended the danger belatedly, futilely tried jumping to the side of the rolling grenade.

Meanwhile, Chuck, certain that the Ring men would not risk shooting him even if they were not otherwise distracted with saving their own lives, made a dash away from where he had thrown the live grenade and recklessly dove right over one of the short outer cubicle walls, landing heavily inside one of the cubicles just as his grenade exploded.

The following blast ripped apart that small section of the room, decimating many of the Ring guards quite gruesomely and at the very least severely injuring any remaining. Mutilated body parts were strewn about, and red stained the surrounding carpet, walls, and ceiling; evidence of the grenade's effectiveness.

Slightly deafened, Chuck shakily rose up from under bits of plaster, which had fallen over him and buried him in the explosion. He shook his head, trying to regain his bearings. The ringing in his ears was slowly growing fainter and fainter, thankfully. He blearily checked himself over for any other grievous injuries as he brushed his clothes off, but could find nothing apart from some small cuts and bruises, and those were not serious by any means, so he diagnosed himself as good to go.

He finally assessed the area further then, and was grateful to see Carina similarly picking herself up wearily from another pile of blast remnants. He was just about to call over to her when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

His eyes darting in that direction, they widened in alarm when they landed on Ulrich not ten feet away. Apparently, the foreign man had been far enough from the grenade that he hadn't been caught in the blast radius. A pity, that was.

A strangled noise erupted from Chuck's throat as he saw the foreign man draw a pistol and aim it at Carina. It did not look like Ulrich had even taken notice of Chuck's presence yet, but he was going to shoot Carina unawares if Chuck didn't do something.

"No!" he shouted, already on the move. Leaping up on the partially-mangled desk in the cubicle he was in, Chuck took a few running steps across it and vaulted himself at Ulrich over the section of cubicle wall that was, remarkably, still standing. Carina looked toward both of them with a deer-in-headlights expression on her face, taking in the scene.

Ulrich's gun went off unnaturally loudly just as Chuck flew through the air and bodily crashed into him. The two men hit the ground hard, the gun landing a couple feet away, and Chuck screamed out in pain as he felt something snap in his left wrist. He knew it was broken subconsciously, but he could not give it the proper attention at that moment.

The two men struggled with each other on the floor, both trying to get their hands on the dropped firearm. Chuck was physically a bit larger, but his mind was still reeling in pain from the broken wrist, and he quickly lost the upper hand to the foreign man.

Still tangled with each other on the ground, Ulrich eventually managed to reach the gun first with the help of his two arms, against Chuck's lone uninjured one, and swept the barrel of it toward Chuck.

A second wind suddenly hitting him, Chuck grabbed the hand of Ulrich's that was holding the gun with his working arm. Gritting his teeth, he fought the foreign man in an unfair battle of arm strength to keep the barrel from being pointed at him. Except Ulrich was cheating, using two hands instead of one.

Chuck tightened his grip on Ulrich's hand and the gun, slowly pushing its barrel back in the direction of the foreign man as he began to overpower his adversary. He vaguely realized this success and continued to persevere, grunting as he put in more and more effort.

Thank heavens he'd used that weight machine as much as he did, Chuck faintly reflected, because otherwise he definitely would have been screwed.

Knowing he couldn't keep his resistance up for much longer, Chuck used one last ounce of energy to force the pistol's barrel fully at the other man. With the barrel lined up, he squeezed the gun's trigger through Ulrich's own fingers, causing the gun to fire unnaturally loudly for the second time within the span of a minute.

Ulrich grunted as the bullet pierced his chest at an upward angle, coughing up blood as his grasp on the firearm dramatically slackened. The foreign man flopped backward onto his back, still, his eyes devoid of any life.

Chuck breathed out in hesitant relief, slumping momentarily as he collected himself.

The sharp pain in his wrist assaulted him fully now, but he stopped himself from yelling out, instead coping with the pain by grinding his teeth together. Sparing a few more moments to come to grips with everything, Chuck held his broken wrist out limply, trying not to jostle it too much as he stood up and stuck Ulrich's gun into the front of his waistband with his free hand.

Rotating around, his breathing uneven, he suddenly jerked forward - to his wrist's chagrin - when he noticed that Carina was no longer standing.

Chuck's breath caught as he quickly moved over and knelt beside her fallen form. She was on her back, a pained grimace on her face as she held her side. Crimson blood was leaking out between her fingers, he disturbingly noted.

It appeared he hadn't quite reached Ulrich in time; the bullet the foreign man had fired had evidently hit its target.

She was still alive, Chuck told himself, everything would be okay. Maybe he'd hampered Ulrich's aim when he had knocked the man down, he considered thoughtfully. That just may have saved her life. If only he'd been a second sooner, however, Carina wouldn't even have been shot at all.

He examined the redhead's wound closer. Though his view was obstructed by her hand putting pressure on it, the gun wound looked to be positioned on the right side of her stomach, below her ribcage.

Seeing even more red liquid flowing through her fingers, Chuck ripped off the bottom section of his shirt, somehow managing to accomplish that with a broken wrist. He shoved it toward the wound, and Carina, cursing, took the shirt segment from him.

She moaned as she applied it to her injury. Finally meeting his eyes after a moment, she unexpectedly bit out, "What is wrong with you!"

Chuck was taken aback by her mood and was just a little confused, and so responded accordingly, "Huh?"

"Your stupid 'just go with it' crap! I thought you had an actual plan, not some suicidal kamikaze move that almost killed us! If I had known what you were doing I never would've gone along with it."

Chuck sputtered indignantly, her well-being jumping straight from his mind, "Hey! We're alive, aren't we? Besides, if I hadn't done that then we would have been caught and you'd be dead now! If anything, you should be thanking me!"

Carina scoffed before he even finished speaking, "Thank you? For what? Almost blowing me up? Or maybe getting me shot? Yeah, right, that's gonna happen!"

His mouth gaped openly several times, trying to find words to come back with, but then he clamped it shut. What Carina said _was_ true, he supposed. He had caused this. All of it, really. But...still.

"Well, you're alive! Don't thank me then, if you don't want, but you can't deny that my 'just go with it' plan got us out of that situation. I thought you liked improvisation! And, anyway, aren't you a secret agent? Isn't stuff like this your cup of tea?"

The redhead took a swipe at him with her free hand, to which he narrowly avoided by awkwardly leaning backward. She let out an involuntary cry of pain as the movement jolted her wound.

Honestly flabbergasted, Chuck raised his eyebrows and looked at her in astonishment, "Did you just try to hit me? Really! Why?"

"You were talking, and I wanted to shut you up. Do I need any other reason?" she haughtily claimed, though there was no true venom in her voice.

Disgruntled, he shot back, "_Or_, maybe you just resort to violence when you know someone else is right and you're wrong!"

Carina mockingly appeared to consider his words, cocking her fractionally. "...Maybe," she admitted coyly after a pause, before attempting to sit up and wincing. "Now, Chucky, help me up. We need to get outta here before more of them come."

He twitched, wondering how the DEA agent could all of a sudden be so casual about everything when just a second ago she had been tearing into him and slandering his methods. Classifying the redhead's manner as just plain inexplicable, Chuck doubtfully inquired, "Can you even walk?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she growled out acerbically, in spite of the evidence pointing out the opposite.

He skeptically gazed at her. "You don't look fine to me..." he spouted, trailing off when she turned to glare at him.

Carina snapped exasperatedly, "Just do it!"

"Right. C'mon then," Chuck said as he offered her his good hand, giving in for the time being. They really did need to get out of there, they'd already wasted enough time as it was. She grabbed it and he pulled her up. She breathed in and out hardly, clearly in pain, but managed to stay standing.

Her hand still holding the segment of his shirt on the wound, she hunched slightly as she glanced around the room trying to decide where they should go. He scrunched his face up at the constant, throbbing pain that was shooting out of his wrist. It was impossible to ignore.

Trying to get a feel for where her thoughts were heading once he managed to get some measure of control over the pain, Chuck asked, "So what do you think, should we go through the emergency exit or the other door?"

Her gaze focused on some point behind him and she said, "Neither."

Chuck turned around to see what she was looking at, finding one of the large, outer windows shattered, apparently from a piece of cubicle wall that had been blasted through it in the explosion. He squinted as he looked back at her, "The window?"

"Yup. We can't afford any more run-ins with my wound, so the window's our best bet."

Chuck followed Carina as she stumbled over to the window, "YOUR wound? What about my wrist? Does that not count or something?"

The redhead didn't respond to the barb, concentrating on stepping through the window without cutting herself on jagged pieces still stuck around the edge of the frame.

Chuck could definitely tell she was having difficulty staying upright as he stepped through the window behind her, probably due to the blood loss. The swaying was making it pretty obvious, he thought to himself, but she didn't say anything about her condition, so he wasn't going to say anything either. Her previous reaction to his queries into her health hadn't gone down well at all.

Once out of the window, they came onto a large grassy area with thick trees scattered around sporadically and practically nothing else.

The midday sun was very bright, he noted, as it warmly washed over his pale skin - something he hadn't felt in a year. He breathed in the fresh air as he surveyed the clear blue sky above with something akin to wonder. That was another thing he hadn't experienced in over a year. The sky in all its glory. And the natural breeze, too, he had missed out on. It almost seemed to tickle his exposed skin as it blew by, causing what remained of his tattered shirt to gently flutter.

It was...amazing. He had never really missed nature and the outdoors until it was completely taken away from him, and now that he could experience it once more, he savored it. He vowed to never again take it for granted. Moreover, he knew would never take anything for granted ever again, because if there was anything he had learned from this entire mess it was that everything you had could disappear within just a moment's notice. It was as simple as that.

Sighing, Chuck was brought back to the present. He wasn't exactly sure where they were, but it didn't look like Burbank at all. That was one thing he could distinguish right away as they trudged forward, Carina leading at a rather slow pace.

Across the grassy area, which he estimated was roughly half a mile at most, Chuck could see houses and what looked like a gas station, along with several roads and other signs of a town further off in the distance. A handful of cars were traveling down the streets up ahead, filling him with the hope that they may yet make it out of this alive.

And then his thoughts wandered backward, drowning out that hopefulness. Back to what he had done. He had killed someone. More than just one person, rather, and he had done it on purpose. The weight of that act, or acts, had not truly fallen on him until this moment, and now that it was finally sinking in, well, Chuck really didn't like it.

It wasn't that he cared about Ulrich and those Ring guards or anything, because he could truly say that he hated them. It was more of the general fact that he had taken a human being's life away. More than one human being's life away. And even if it _was_ a desperate situation in that case, what gave him the right to do that? To extinguish another person's life?

That ate at him, now. Ulrich's death had been especially personal in the way it had happened, and so it stood out more prominently in his mind compared to the grenade explosion that had killed the other guards.

He considered his thoughts broodingly, as the two continued their way over the grass in the direction of the town.

Chuck glanced back at the Ring building for some reason. They were far enough away from it now that he could see a parking lot off to the right side of the building, which probably meant the front of it was on that side too, meaning they had exited the building from one of its sides. He also observed that no Ring guards were chasing them. Yet, anyway.

His attention returned forward as he delved deeper into his jaded feelings. Mulling it over further, he suddenly realized something in that grassy lawn or field or whatever it was, something big. He realized that, deep-down, he didn't actually feel any sort of regret about killing Ulrich, or those other men. None whatsoever. What that meant, Chuck wasn't sure.

They had it coming to them, clearly, but the fact that he wasn't regretful of his actions very much bothered him. It bothered him that he had such conflicting emotions on the matter, because while he did not regret what he did, the general notion that he took a living, breathing person's life still ate at him. It was all just so confusing, and jumbled, that he just wasn't sure what to make of everything. Why couldn't it ever just be easy and straightforward? Why did it always seem to turn out this way?

He felt like his eyes had forcefully been opened to the tragedies of the world now. His experience with the Ring, and even with the CIA and NSA, had ripped away his optimistic, sheltered view of the way the world worked without his permission. And he didn't like what he saw, everything was not what it seemed. Violence dominated the way the world worked, power reigned over everything. All of the stuff he had learned about when he was young and naive, it turned out, was hypocritical babble.

Society didn't revolve around honesty; it didn't revolve around bravery, courage, or valor; and it certainly didn't revolve around love or kindness. No, society at its core depended on the very things that Chuck as a kid had learned were wrong. It gravitated around those wrong things, with the right things being pushed away to the side. And sure, there were righteous people here and there, doing all the right things, but as a whole, the world was entirely opposite. That's just the way it was, though he sadly wondered how it had all come to that.

The right were overpowered and outnumbered by the wrong, to put it succinctly. Now, however, he completely understood all of that. It was hidden from him no longer. If he only he could change it all, he mused desperately, things would be better for everyone. That daunting task was practically impossible, Chuck knew, but a man could dream, couldn't he? And a dream it would stay, unfortunately.

The world really sucked, Chuck decided right then. Being so unsure of himself and of what he felt really sucked. The nasty turn his life had taken over the last year really sucked. Being unable to do anything about the disaster they were in right now really sucked. And most importantly, at that moment, his broken left wrist really sucked.

That was something he needed to get treated as soon as possible. He had no idea what to do with a broken limb. Was he supposed to splint it? That seemed like the logical action, after all, but he just didn't know. His sister was even a doctor and he didn't know! It was at this time that he really wished he would have paid more attention to the lectures she had given him on basic medical care.

But back then, Chuck hadn't ever realized he would actually need those skills, so he hadn't taken learning them very seriously at all. What a mistake that was, he grimaced to himself.

Yes, medical help was definitely needed, and not just for him either. Carina was not well, he could see quite plainly, whether or not she wanted to admit it. He only hoped they could find some help before it was too late.

Speaking of which, just then Carina all of a sudden made a beeline toward one of the nearby trees, almost staggering over to it and heavily leaning against its trunk. Chuck made his way over to her to investigate, refraining from saying anything as she lowered herself down the ground and sat up against the tree.

That couldn't be good, he hedged to himself in concern.

They were a little over halfway through the grassy area at this point, but Carina didn't look like she could make it much further in her condition. This definitely presented a bit of a problem.

"Can you keep going?" he asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

She blew air through her teeth, "Just gimme a second."

Chuck watched her for a moment. He didn't want to sound impatient or anything, but they really needed to get moving, both to get farther away from the Ring and so that they could find medical attention. It looked like he would just have to take things into his own hands.

"Carina, really, we gotta go," he told her, "If you can't walk, then I'll just do it for you. Here." He offered her his hand to help her up as he finished, but she ignored it and stared back at him.

"I can walk on my own," she stiffly said, making to get up. She made it about halfway up before lowering herself back down to the ground, her face contorted in pain.

Chuck rolled his eyes, "Yes, I can see that." No sarcasm there, nope. "Grab my hand, Carina. We don't have time for your stubbornness. Come on!"

She didn't respond, but he could tell that she had understood what he said, as she roughly took his hand and allowed him to pull her up. Chuck considered his broken wrist, silently wondering if he would be able to piggyback her or if his wrist would hurt too much. It already hurt too much, as a matter of fact, but he knew they had to keep moving. There wasn't any other choice to be made.

With some difficulty, Chuck crouched down in front of her, facing away, and she painstakingly climbed onto his back. She wrapped her legs just above his waist, grunting all the way in obvious pain. Chuck maneuvered the crook of his arms around her thighs, securing her position there, while at the same time consciously making sure his left wrist was not nudged or jostled unnecessarily. He whimpered at one juncture, as that very thing happened, but the sharp pain subsided slightly soon after.

Finally, they got into suitable positions, where the pain was manageable for both of them. The pressure her legs exerted on the other part of Chuck's left arm hurt his wrist, mysteriously, but if he shifted to certain positions, the pain was not as bad. Likewise, it seemed, for the redhead.

Operation Piggyback was a success, somehow!

Chuck and Carina eventually reached the end of the field several minutes later. Chuck, carrying Carina on his back, was breathing raggedly, the extra weight slowing him down a bit. Carina was slumped by this time, her arms loosely over his shoulders and around his neck. He knew she was still conscious though, from the comments she would make every once in awhile.

In one of those comments she had specifically told him that she was just conserving her energy, and that she was fine. Chuck took that notion with a grain of salt, of course, but he couldn't see why she just wouldn't admit that she needed help. It didn't make any sense.

_Carina_ didn't make any sense, he corrected. She was honestly a puzzle he couldn't quite piece together. Granted, he didn't really know her all that well, but what he had seen from her so far, quite frankly, bewildered him.

They crossed a cement road between a loll in the sparse traffic, both of them glancing around curiously, and Chuck walked further into the small town along a cracked sidewalk, still carrying the redhead upon his back like some sort of royal steed.

The place, whatever town they were in, was in no way familiar to him. It was a small community, he could tell, and looked more rural than urban. Chuck was understandably worried - he had no idea of where they could possibly be. He was certain they were still in the U.S., but they were definitely nowhere he'd ever traveled to before.

As another dire question entered his troubled thoughts, he voiced it automatically. "So, uh, what do we do now...?"

Chuck was completely at a loss to what their next move should be. What would be the smartest thing to do in this situation? He just didn't know. This is where Carina's experience would definitely come in handy.

Carina shifted marginally in his hold, "Well, wherever we are, we need to find some faster transportation, and we can't involve just anybody on the street if we can help it, for multiple reasons. Mainly, because it'll be dangerous for them, but also, we can't have unnecessary attention being brought on us. And to make things worse, it probably won't be long until the Ring starts coming after us and setting up barricades around the area, so we have to move quickly."

"We need medical attention too. Preferably sooner rather than later," Chuck commented, hoping Carina didn't insist on refusing. He found that the pain in his broken wrist wasn't lessening at all, but it was getting a little easier to handle as more time passed. Still, that did not mean he didn't want the constant throbbing to stop.

She paused, thinking, before replying, "You're right, we do. But we also have to get as far away from here as we can and fast." She stopped talking then, presumably brainstorming a plan of action. Chuck almost sighed in relief, hearing her agree like that, especially when before she had practically downright ignored their injuries.

"We could always ask someone around here if we could borrow their car..." he suggested, not really serious. Who in their right mind would lend two haggard, disheveled strangers their vehicle? Yeah, that's right, no one would.

"Something along those lines, yeah, good idea."

Chuck's forehead creased, "What? Seriously? You think someone will let us have their car?"

There were a few people out and about, walking or driving or doing yard work in front of their homes lining the street. As Chuck and Carina made their way by, they unavoidably attracted many odd stares, yet no one came running to see what was wrong. Which, while at first striking Chuck as a little unseemly, was actually probably just as well. Since they didn't want to invite unwanted attention to their situation, according to Carina, this was for the better.

Rationalizing, Chuck figured the residents of whatever town they were in likely just assumed they were bums or something, as Carina's gunshot wound was mostly hidden from sight behind his own body, and his broken wrist could believably be missed from even a short distance away. Add those things in with their tattered, grimy appearance and they could easily be mistaken for vagrants of whatever sort. And while that image repelled any attempts at prying, it did nothing for the uncomfortable, guarded looks being sent their way.

Instead of answering his disbelieving question, Carina pointed ahead with one of her arms, "Up ahead, look. That billboard."

Chuck swiveled his head in that direction, away from all of the weird looks other passersby were giving them.

Up ahead, as the DEA agent had said, sticking up above several small buildings, was a good-sized, weathered billboard. It was advertising something about farm equipment, but that wasn't the important thing that Carina had been pointing out. The important part, Chuck instantly caught on to, was the two words printed in bold at the very bottom of the sign.

_Muntt, Nebraska._

He blinked a couple of times.

Had he read that right? Nebraska? The state with all the corn?

As he let that bit of information settle in, Chuck shook his head. How had he ended up that far from California? No, scratch that, why was there even a Ring substation here? It was _totally_ random...which he supposed was the entire point. After all, nobody would ever think to look for the Ring in Nebraska.

"N-Nebraska?"

Carina huffed, "Apparently. We're basically in the middle of nowhere. Just great." Pausing, she reiterated, "Like I said, we need to move fast. First off, we need some wheels, then we can worry about finding medical attention."

"Right," Chuck said, still distracted by his thoughts. To think, of all places, he had been in a small town in Nebraska this whole time.

Inconsequentially, Chuck could now at least say that he had been to the Midwestern state. He'd never really had any desire to travel there before in the past, but he supposed it was one more place he could add to the list of places he'd been to.

Oddly enough, by this time, Chuck had almost gotten used to Carina's extra weight. He still felt very weighed down and all, but it no longer felt so overwhelming, which seemed a little backwards to him. Shouldn't he be feeling more overwhelmed and weighed down the longer he carried her? He shrugged inwardly as they kept moving forward, further into the town of Muntt.

Chuck piggybacked Carina past the gas station and crossed the street, passing several small stores along the way. It looked like they might be on the town's main street, though he couldn't really tell for sure, as they didn't stop to investigate.

The bizarre stares were still coming their way, but it got easier to ignore them after the first few. The businesses they passed were all local, except for a couple fast food restaurants, and Chuck couldn't help but wonder what living there would be like. In some ways, it would be quite nice, actually. In others, however, it might be lacking. One way or another, he supposed he would never really have the chance to try it out, so he dropped that line of thought.

They eventually continued on into what looked like the residential area, at Carina's urging. She didn't exactly say why, but Chuck got the feeling that it had to do with all of the people out and about back on the main street.

All the homes looked middle to lower class, he figured as he looked around him while they walked. There really wasn't much to note, Chuck decided disinterestedly, as the town appeared to be pretty typical of any small community. Carina's attention was focused elsewhere though, he soon found out.

"Gimme your gun," she said from his back, reaching a hand out in front of him. Her demand confused him a bit, so he didn't acquiesce right away.

"What? Why do you need it?"

Carina impatiently responded, "C'mon, give it here, Chuck. I promise I won't fire it or shoot anyone, if that helps."

Chuck shook his head in bafflement, saying, "Uh, okay, I guess," as he pulled the gun out of his waistband and maneuvered his unbroken arm around to hand it to her. She reflexively checked the clip before slamming it back in with a click.

"Thanks. Now go over to that woman loading bags into her SUV. Quick!"

Chuck followed her directions automatically, a troubled expression forming on his face. He saw the woman in question on the side of the street, not more than a dozen yards away, shoving a couple duffel bags into the trunk of her maroon red vehicle. The vehicle was an SUV as Carina had said, but Chuck actually knew that it was a Subaru Forester, as one of his former Buy More co-workers used to have one.

He suddenly didn't like where this was going, thinking back to giving Carina the gun just a moment ago. Glancing around them, Chuck also noticed that there was no one nearby. He slowed when he realized this, and what Carina was probably thinking of doing, but they were already mere feet from the girl.

"Don't m-" Carina started, before Chuck interrupted her just as the civilian girl whirled around.

Chuck backed up a bit, almost dropping the redhead in the process, horrified, "Carina! What are you doing?"

The startled black-haired girl fearfully stared at the gun that Carina was pointing in her direction, while Carina answered him sharply, "Damn it, Chuck, shut up! Don't worry. This was your idea in the first place!"

Turning her attention back to the other girl, the redhead steadied her aim, "Don't move. We're gonna need your car."

The young woman, who Chuck now saw was wearing glasses, put her hands up defensively, "U-um yeah, whatever, just don't hurt me."

Finally coming back with a reply, Chuck defensively said, "Whoa whoa, no way. This was not my idea! I just said th-...wait! So this is what you're cryptic comment meant earlier! I should've known..." He trailed off, trying to decide what to do and whether or not he should stop her.

One part of him reeled at the thought of doing what she was doing, while another part reminded him that Carina was the experienced one here. What she was doing may be the smart move, he considered, finally coming to a decision.

Chuck didn't like this one bit, but Carina surely knew what she was doing, he told himself. And she had promised not to fire the gun, after all. He only hoped she kept her word, because this did not feel right to him in any way. That aside, for the time being, he resolved to give the redhead the benefit of the doubt and go along with her plan.

Carina tapped him on the shoulder, "Put me down, Chuck."

He did so hesitantly, making sure she would be able to stand. She managed to stay upright though, the only sign of her discomfort being the pained expression across her face. Carina turned back to the girl and held out her hand, demanding, "Keys?"

The girl immediately complied, shakily handing the keys to the Forester over. However, Carina wasn't done with her yet, to both Chuck's and the young woman's shock. With the gun still in her face, Carina told her, "Get in the driver's seat, you're coming with us."

Chuck was about to voice his disagreement with that, but Carina's 'don't you dare' look stopped him in his tracks. Mutely, the black-haired girl did as she was told, but she obviously wasn't liking the position she was in much at all.

He didn't blame her.

Carina handed the gun back over to him when the girl got into the driver's seat, sternly whispering in his ear, "Keep it pointed on her, and at least act like you'll shoot her if she doesn't do as we say." A little breathlessly, she also added, "I'm takin' the back."

Chuck helped Carina into the back seat of the SUV, as he could tell the blood loss was very much getting to her by this point, before finally climbing into the front passenger seat himself. He carelessly bumped his broken wrist as he did this, and the sharp pains sprung up shortly once again, causing him to briefly yell out.

He buckled his seat belt as soon as the pain subsided, taking even more care not to brush his handicapped limb against anything else.

Chuck looked back to Carina, seeing her weakly laying across the back seat, and pointed the gun toward the civilian woman when the redhead sent him a significant look. Carina then tossed the keys up to the front, threateningly saying, "Now, drive!"

OOOOO

_Several hours later...  
_

A muscular man sat at a table, his arms resting on top, as an older man with a scarred face stood behind him.

John Casey clenched his jaw, "You called. What do you want?"

The older man smirked, "Need ya to do something for me. With me, actually."

"Well?" Casey growled out impatiently when his former superior did not go on, clearly unhappy about being there.

Keller set a blown up photo on the table in front of the bulky man, "You're goin' to help me retrieve this man."

The older man's peculiar tone prompted Casey to curiously look down at it. His casual gaze suddenly sharpened as he peered at it. Examining the picture closer, his chair squeaked against the bare floor when he abruptly sat forward, his entire posture turning rigid.

"You've got a past with him, don't ya?" Keller knowingly asked, watching Casey's reaction closely.

Casey, holding onto the edge of the table with a vice grip, bit out, "This man is dead."

"'Fraid not, Alex."

This earned Keller a cutting glance from Casey, "That's not my name anymore, Keller." In a low tone, he went on, "How is he still alive?"

Keller sneered, "Not important. All you need ta know is that I've been tasked with capturing Charles Carmichael, and I'm enlistin' ya to assist me. Clear?"

Casey was silent, the gears in his head turning. He spoke up a moment later, gruffly saying, "Don't got a choice, do I?"

That was answer enough, it seemed, as Keller grinned. "Good. Now, this won't interfere with your other operation, will it? It'll still be useful having a mole there."

"No, Bravo team won't notice anything different. Half of us are always gone anyway," Casey revealed with gritted teeth, hating himself for what he was doing.

Keller nodded, "Good, you're familiarity with Carmichael should be useful. He's thought to be headed this way, so be ready. I'll call ya when your needed."

Casey stood up from his chair, still staring down at the photo. He looked up when Keller added, "Oh, and Alex, I'm sure ya know to keep this to yourself. Anyone finds out about this, and, well, let's just say Kathleen won't be too happy. Understood?"

Casey tensed noticeably, his hands in fists at his side. Snarling angrily, he stalked out of the shadowy room.

* * *

To be continued...

If you're wondering, Muntt is a made up place. It is not a real town in Nebraska, at least I don't think it is. If by some crazy off chance that it ACTUALLY is a town in Nebraska, well, then my bad. The Muntt in this story is imaginary though.

Also, the little snippets of what Chuck's loved ones are up to. I've been attempting to transition into them smoothly, or at least somewhat smoothly, but I don't know how successful I was with managing that. Do you think they just disrupt the pace and flow of the escape? Let me know what you think!


	8. Road Trip

So, it's been decided. This will be eventual Chuck/Sarah. Hope you're happy!

Here's the next chapter!

* * *

Chapter 8: Road Trip

_She then tossed the keys up to the front, threateningly saying, "Now, drive!"_

"W-where?" the girl with glasses asked, her voice small.

Chuck watched Carina mentally process the question, "California."

Chuck's eyebrows rose, "Cali? Already? That's a pretty far drive, isn't it? I doubt she knows the way to California anyway, Carina..."

"Well, she has California license plates, so she better," Carina answered, looking to the black-haired young woman in the driver's seat.

Chuck stilled, suddenly realizing why Carina had been so adamant in doing what she had and in taking this car. He had been so busy and distracted with everything that happened that he hadn't even noticed the license plates - they had been the last thing on his mind. Apparently Carina truly did know what she was doing, after all.

The young woman glanced back at the redhead, seemingly just now taking in Carina's horrid condition, and turned to him. Her black hair was in a messy ponytail, and she nervously brushed a few loose strands out of the way as she said, "That's where I live, y-yeah. I've got a road map here though, so you don't need me anymore...do you?"

Chuck guiltily looked at the innocent woman. She shouldn't have to be dragged into all this because of them - it wasn't right. And what she just said was true, they could use the map to get to California without her. They didn't need her, and she shouldn't have to be put through this.

He started nodding, and was just about to tell her she could go, when Carina spoke up from the back.

"No."

Whipping his head back toward the backseat, Chuck questioningly recanted, "No?"

"No," she repeated, "If we let her go, she'll just report the car stolen and we won't get far. Plus, if she comes along she can drive for us."

He bit his lip then, seeing her point. He still didn't like it, but he knew Carina was right. There was no guarantee that the girl wouldn't tell anyone if they allowed her to go, even if they threatened her, and if she reported them they wouldn't get far at all. They would be as good as dead.

He met the other girl's eyes almost apologetically, but the sentiment was probably nullified by the gun he was pointing in her direction. "Guess your coming with us then," he told her grimly, glancing down to his broken wrist with yet another grimace. "We need to get some first aid too, sometime soon," Chuck explained to her as he raised his head. "But first, we need to just drive and get out of this town."

The girl's eyes darted down to his broken wrist and back toward Carina's wound, before returning to him. Gulping, she tentatively revealed, "I-I'm actually a doctor."

Chuck shot her a shocked look, just as Carina gave a short laugh. "So I was right then?" she asked aloud. When Chuck turned his look of shock back to her, Carina explained further, "She has a bumper sticker from some hospital on her rear bumper. I wasn't sure if she would be able us or not, but it was our best bet at the time. Looks like we got lucky."

"W-what? I didn't see that! Why didn't you tell me? Oh, nevermind, forget it," he exclaimed, yet again taken aback by the redhead's observation abilities. She really had chosen this woman and her car for specific reasons, after all, not just because they were the most convenient.

Chuck didn't know why he was still so surprised at Carina's resourcefulness. He knew she was a spy and all, like Sarah, but outwardly she had always seemed so reckless and carefree that he'd never pegged her for being clever, competent, or logical. For some reason he'd just never seen her as a better agent than Sarah, or even Casey, but now he wasn't so sure about that - maybe she really did match up evenly with Sarah.

"Right, lets get moving. Once we are far enough away, we'll stop for treatment," Carina took control, ignoring Chuck's comment and addressing the girl with glasses. "You wouldn't by chance have med supplies with you, would you?"

OOOOO

They started out driving along the highway, no one speaking, each too wrapped up in their own thoughts or trying to deal with their pain quietly. Chuck diligently kept the gun trained on the black-haired girl, even though he had no notion of actually using it. She didn't need to know that, however.

He studied the young woman in the driver's seat to his left as she guided the steering wheel about a turn, keeping her eyes glued to the road. It looked like her initial shock at the situation had subsided a bit, he gladly noted.

The palpable silence was so tense that, finally, Chuck just couldn't take it any longer.

"So...what's your name?" he queried, cutting through the unnerving quiet.

Chuck estimated she was probably somewhere in her twenties, maybe mid-twenties. She was moderately attractive, and her skin was a dark tan color, naturally it appeared, with wavy black hair down to her shoulders.

"Rachel." She didn't elaborate any further, or ask him who he was, so Chuck took the initiative once again.

"Ah, Rachel. That's a good name. Well I'm Chuck," he introduced himself offhandedly. "I, um, I am really, really, sorry about all this," he apologized genuinely, feeling like he should say something about the situation. He couldn't tell if she actually believed him or not, because all she did was nod slightly, but he hoped she realized his words were heartfelt.

Chuck went on, his tone filled with forced casualness, "So why are you here in Nebraska if you're from Cali? Are you on vacation or something?"

She shook her head, meeting his eyes for the first time since they started driving, "No, just visiting my family. This is where I'm from."

Chuck tilted his head, "Oh, from Muntt? That's interesting. How do you like California compared to here?"

Rachel looked at him strangely, probably wondering if he was serious, but she answered the question nonetheless. "It's good, I guess," she shrugged.

"I'm actually from California myself, Bur-" Chuck began saying conversationally, before Carina abruptly cut him off from the back seat.

"Chuck! Stop right there! You can't be revealing personal information like that to just anyone," she reprimanded hotly, in a tone that suggested he should know that already. "You're not supposed to get to know your hostages either! Didn't Sarah ever tell you these things?"

Meekly, he looked back to see her rolling her eyes. "I, well, I guess I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I mean, it's not like she's one of them or something," he said, shooting a glance at the girl in question, who was pretending not to eavesdrop even though it was obvious she could hear them.

"But what if they take her and interr-...ask her? Then you'll be exposed. NEVER reveal that stuff to anyone!" Carina replied back, conscious of Rachel's presence but emphasizing her point anyway. Rachel tensed slightly at Carina's words, Chuck noticed.

He also realized that, once again, the redhead was right. Giving out that kind of information to strangers _was_ a bad idea.

OOOOO

"You know, you didn't have to tell us you were a doctor and all, seeing as how we hijacked your car and took you hostage. But you still did," Chuck curiously commented as Rachel gently examined his broken wrist.

The black-haired doctor took her eyes away from his wrist to meet his eyes, before shrugging. "I'm a doctor, I treat people no matter who they are. It just comes with the job," she replied, digging through the sack of supplies behind her. They had purchased them from a local drug store nearby not even 20 minutes prior, after having driven for 2 straight hours and stopping in another small town. It was eerily similar to Muntt, Chuck had noted, except for the noticeable lack of a Ring facility.

Presently, they were parked along the side of a gravel road just outside of the town, Chuck and Carina finally getting their wounds treated.

Carina had been the first to be looked over, as her injury was clearly more severe than his. She had lost a lot of blood by that time, and Rachel was surprised she was even still conscious. She'd said it was miraculous the redhead was still coherent. Chuck knew they should have gotten her patched up sooner, but he was thankful that it appeared she would live.

After tediously pulling the bullet out, which had still been embedded in the wound, Rachel had bandaged it up and given Carina some over-the-counter medication to both ease the pain and get her to rest. Carina was, of course, leery of going to sleep, but Chuck assured her he had everything under control. Besides, he had told her when the other girl had stepped away for a moment, Rachel didn't seem too dangerous or foolhardy. Chuck would make sure she stayed in line.

Carina had passed out then, in the back seat, not being able to fight the drugs for very long, and Rachel had returned to treat his own injury. He had the gun gripped in his other hand, but he had long since ceased aiming it at the doctor. She wouldn't be able to do much in the time it took for him to point it back at her, so the threat still hung solidly. She wouldn't try anything, he was certain.

Once Rachel had set his wrist in a splint, she'd told him he should be fine eventually. His wrist still ached terribly, especially after being splinted, but after awhile he knew the constant pain would die down. This wasn't his first time breaking a bone, after all, and it probably wouldn't be his last.

And as simple as that they were back on the road 5 minutes later, on their way to California to do who knew what. Chuck reminded himself to ask Carina about that when she woke up. He really needed to be in the know on these things.

OOOOO

It was several uneventful hours before Carina woke up, wherein Chuck and Rachel had pretty much remained silent that entire time. He hadn't tried making conversation anymore after Carina's rebuttal, no matter how bored he may have been. He just kept his eyes focused forward and let his thoughts drift.

Carina yawned, but didn't make any move to sit up from her position across the back seat.

"How long was I out?" she groggily asked.

Chuck didn't turn around as he answered, "Only a few hours. You should probably go back to sleep, actually. You'll heal faster."

Carina snorted, "No thanks, I much prefer being awake. Anything crazy happen while I was asleep, Chuck?"

Chuck shook his head. "Nope," he said, "just a bunch of driving. Rachel here is doing a good job."

Rachel didn't outwardly show any reaction to hearing her name, instead just concentrating on driving the car. Carina looked at the back of Rachel's head, "Hm, that's good."

"At some point we're going to have to stop for the night somewhere. Any ideas on how we're going to accomplish that? Or are we just going to camp out in the car?" he asked, finally glancing back to Carina questioningly.

"We'll just stop at an inn and rent a room," Carina supplied, her tone implying that she thought that was obvious.

Chuck blinked uncertainly as he replied, "I don't have any money, Carina. Do you?"

She answered negatively, but pointed at Rachel. "She does though."

Rachel looked over at Chuck when the redhead said that, but he avoided meeting her eyes, only saying, "Oh."

"Yep," Carina said. Shooting a look at Rachel, she demanded, "Hand your purse over to Chuck, please."

Their hostage didn't move for a moment, before complying in resignation. Chuck finally made eye contact with Rachel as he took her purse from her. Muttering out an apology to her, Chuck started digging through the purse in search of money.

"Found it," he announced for Carina's benefit as he pulled out Rachel's wallet from the purse. He handed it back to the redhead before setting the purse on the floor beside his feet. He wasn't sure if he would need it again, so he figured it was best to keep it handy.

OOOOO

They ended up stopping at a small rundown motel three hours later, just before midnight. Using Rachel's credit card, they got a room for the night. After Rachel commented that standing up and walking around could reopen Carina's wound, Chuck insisted on carrying her into the motel room despite her strong disagreement on the matter.

Carina and Rachel occupied the only bed present in the room that night, while Chuck sat on the floor with his back up against the door, drowsily keeping guard. He didn't really think Rachel would attempt an escape, but just in case, it was only logical to keep watch. And between him and Carina, he was the only one in good enough condition to do it, as Carina needed more rest to recover from her injuries.

It hadn't been so bad though.

They set out early the next morning, California-bound. He wasn't quite sure if they would reach their destination by the end of that day, or if they'd need to stop at another motel. It would be close. Either way, they were almost there. That was something good, at least.

And while Chuck wasn't sure what Carina had in mind once they got there, anything would be better than being locked up by the Ring. He smiled to himself, relishing in the realization that he was finally free. Finally free of the Ring, of Ulrich, and of that caged existence.

He would fight to stay free, too. There was no doubt in his mind that the Ring would pursue him doggedly, but Chuck vowed he would do everything in his power to stay out of their grasp. No, he would go further than that.

He would bring the Ring to its knees, once and for all, if it was the last thing he did.

They, along with the CIA and NSA, had ruined his life. But the Ring had done the worst, and he would make them pay for that. He'd been separated from his family, from his friends, and from his normal life because of them.

And he would be damned if he was going to let that happen to anyone else. The Ring had to be stopped, and no matter what it took, Chuck was going to do it. That was the least they deserved, anyway. He wouldn't quit until he took his last breath, he decided grimly.

With his ambitions in order, Chuck relaxed in the front passenger seat and closed his eyes. He'd given Carina the pistol, so she could stay alert and make sure they were going the right direction while he napped.

He was very overdue on sleep after the previous night, so it wasn't hard by any means for him to drift off to sleep. Coincidentally, while Chuck was napping in that uncomfortable, straight-backed car seat, he had one of the best dreams he'd had in awhile.

It was arguably the best dream he'd ever had in his entire life.

He'd dreamed of a time when he could see his family again, when he could see his friends again. When he could see Sarah again.

And that time, he hoped, wouldn't be too far off in the future.

* * *

To be continued...

Yes, I know that was really, really short. Unfortunately, that's all I got for now!

And no, Chuck will not be getting together with Rachel. There won't be any Chuck/OC in this story.


End file.
